


And You Can Leave Your Wizard Hat On

by tikistitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, M/M, also a dash of yuri on ice, but we love them, cas is kind of an idiot, dean is kind of an idiot, plus trucking, they're both actually idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9946526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tikistitch/pseuds/tikistitch
Summary: Dean Winchester is a student at the Chuckworts School of Wizarding Arts and Long-Haul Trucking.  And he has a problem.  Actually, he has a few problems: he's failing several classes, and this might put his and Sammy's scholarship in jeopardy.  But his biggest problem is his rather obvious crush on a fellow student named Castiel.  Cas is a brilliant wizard with big blue eyes, but his brothers (who all go to the school) are pretty obnoxious, and every time Dean runs into Cas, he ends up doing something ridiculously un-cool.  Imagine Dean's discomfit when he is entered in the Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament and finds out his co-driver will be none other than Castiel … who can't even drive, we should note!  It will take everything Dean's got to go up against Lucifer and his nasty friends, save their scholarship, save the school, and maybe – just maybe – actually look awesome in front of Cas.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to [kuwlshadow](http://kuwlshadow.livejournal.com/62528.html) for the lovely artwork!

_You've probably all heard of the famous wizarding school in Europe._

_This story is most certainly_ not _about that school._

_This is a story about a little known wizarding school hidden out on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Many years ago, a huckster and minimally talented wizard named Chuck Shurley (a/k/a Carver Edlund, a/k/a “Our Lord and Savior”) started his own wizarding school in an abandoned shopping mall. Some say it was a bizarre tax dodge; others, some kind of mail order scam. But scam or not, it proved incredibly popular, as wizards and witches on the west coast happily sent their children to a school for training in the magical arts._

_Like that other school, this one has four houses, based on the four defunct department stores that now serve as their dormitories. The Bloomingdales are known for their courage, as well as a great selection of chic sportswear. The Nordstroms are the smarties, and they also host a great half yearly sale. The NeimanMarcus house is known for poor sportsmanship and oversized plush toys. Lastly there is the JCPenney house – no one really knows what they're about, but we needed four._

_Likewise, the food court up on the third floor now serves as the dining area. They serve up some excellent chili cheese fries._

_Alas, Prof. Shurley, as he's now known, was not much of a financial planner. When the school inevitably fell on hard times (there were said to be some mob loans involved, to repay old gambling debts, but nobody is really sure), he merged with the trade school next door to create, at least for a time, a financially stable entity. Thus, the Chuckworts School of Wizarding Arts and Long-Haul Trucking was born. They don't really offer any of those courses any more of course – most of the students are too young to be certified. But due to this rather odd arrangement, a couple of scholarship students, half-wizard half-muggle, managed to slip in a bit under the wire._

_We're speaking of the Winchesters, of course. Sam Winchester had always dreamed of following his mom's footsteps to the magical world, but Dean had been a bit of a slacker, that is, until the owl with his admission letter dive-bombed him one night while he was out quite late in a local park drinking (or trying to drink) his first beer. Things didn't go quite as planned (the Chuckworts messenger owls being real assholes, if you want the truth), and after Mary had bandaged up the claw scratches on Dean's head (it didn't really matter, as the Winchesters were both rather magical even in those days at healing up without scarring), his father loaded him in the back of his Long-Haul truck and he was packed off to Chuckworts, his brother following him a year later._

_To his own surprise, Dean proved to be a decent wizarding student, although he was even more achieved at getting into mischief. And that is where our story begins...._

 

 

Dean tossed in a bit more foxglove root and paused to peer down into the pot of potions he'd been working on this last hour. He sniffed, and then lurched back, immediately regretting it. Dead skunk and cabbage stew, crossed with one of Sammy's best farts? No, even that wasn't stinky enough. 

Potions class was a real drag, especially under that fusty old Prof. Henricksen, who was always on his case. “Process makes perfect,” his motto, was scrawled out on the chalkboard. Seriously? _Process?_ Dude, they were mixing up poison brews! This should be an awesome class. But instead you spent two or three hours a day simmering, simmering, simmering away in this dark basement. Like, why even would you schedule Potions in a freaking basement? There was little ventilation, and it already had that musty armpit-smell you got with every dank basement around these parts, so you tended to emerge after a session with your stanky robes still reeking.

He gazed around. This would have been the basement of the old Neiman Marcus store, so the Neimans would have their dorms somewhere overhead. Aha. Probably why they all stunk! Well, more in a metaphorical sense, but Sammy would be proud of Dean for even thinking the word, “metaphor.”

Dean sighed and slumped onto his seat. One of the stool’s legs was slightly too short, or maybe three of them were too long, so he occupied himself for a bit by wiggling back and forth. He risked a shy glance over towards the lab bench where some Nordstrom kids were gathered, his eye especially drawn to one boy in particular. Standing there, drowning in robes two sizes two big, Castiel Malakhim stood on tip-toe, peering only at his bubbling brew with that laser-like focus. Castiel was only a third-year student at the Chuckworts School of Wizarding Arts and Long-Haul Trucking, but he came from an old, pure-blood family, and was quite advanced. Word was he was already an animagus!

Dean hadn't noticed him much before this year – not until he bumped into him in Potions. Like, literally bumped into him. Dean had been late for class. Because of quidditch practice he was usually late for class, and he had charged right into the smaller boy, knocking a good shelf-worth of library books out of the little bookworms arms. He paused to help pick up the mess. Hey, he was a klutz, but not an asshole! 

He squatted down and grabbed a couple of the books. It was mostly arcane stuff, but there was also a paperback with a really odd title, _Figure Skating: Life and Love_ , by some Russian dude named Victor Somethingorother. Dean stared at it for a beat too long, only to have a pale hand reach out and snatch it away.

“Hey, dude, I'm really sorry,” Dean explained, gathering the rest of the musty books into his arms.

“It's all right, Dean,” intoned the skinny kid. “I was obviously carrying too many books.” They stood, and the kid glanced shyly into his eyes.

It was hard to explain what happened just then. If Dean had been his dad's pocket watch – which he wasn't, of course – then one of those little springs would have gone “sproing” just then and set time all to hell. If he had been a muggle motor car – they were quite cool, you had to admit it – then one of the pistons would have shot out and everything would have ground to a halt right then and there.

But Dean was neither a pocket watch nor a Chevy, and so he could only stare and stutter and grip the stack of books until the other boy finally took pity on him or whatever and began to pile them off Dean's arms. Dean watched dumbly as his pile of books was reduced to four – three – two – one books, and then no books, and then as he kept a grip on that last damned book, finally the paralysis released and he managed to stutter out, “And, uh, you're-?”

“Castiel.”

Well, of course. Of course. Of course this boy had a name like Castiel, which wasn't even a name but more like something pretty you'd say in a poem, if you were to write poems, which Dean didn't, but maybe he could ask Sammy about it?

“Castiel,” Dean repeated dumbly. And then the boy nodded and shuffled off to his seat in Potions without a backwards glance. No, actually, he did glance backwards once, as he deposited the pile of books on the corner of his lab bench. 

And Dean's life would never be the same.

“Winchester!” Dean flinched as Prof. Henricksen once again managed to sneak up on him. Charlie, his potions partner, who was supposed to be watching his back for stuff like this was instead totally away from her station, flirting with Dorothy over at the JCPenney House table again (oh, she was gonna get ribbed for that later – just wait). Meantime, Dean was gonna get it for like the fifty million jillionth time from Hen- _prick_ -sen.

The professor crossed his arms and glared at Dean. “And what step in the process are you at now, Winchester?” he demanded, pointing to the stupid “Process makes perfect” line on the chalkboard. 

“Uhhh,” Dean explained. _Foxglove_ , he had just tossed in some foxglove. It should be right there on the page. Yeah, there it was, step 3a.

“Step 3a!” Dean said, pointing to the page.

Henricksen scowled. It was his resting face, actually. “Yes I can see that. Step 3a … of last Tuesday's lesson.”

Oh, shitballs.

“Oh … _shoeshine_ ,” was what Dean actually muttered. While Henricksen continued to glower and Charlie – that rat – whispered and giggled with Dorothy, and pretty much every other eye in the classroom was upon him, Dean scrambled to find his place in the current lesson, which was sleeping stew and not sulking broth. 

“Perhaps shoeshine will indeed be the result of your … experimentation. Unfortunately, we are supposed to be creating sleeping stew today,” Henricksen explained, adding, “Please at least attempt to keep your head in the game, Mr. Winchester.”

Flustered, Dean scanned the page of his textbook. It appeared that he had at least started out on the right lesson, it was just sleeping stew and sulking broth were so damned similar. Hell, everything they boiled up in this stupid class was the same thing.

“What did you do, Dean?” Charlie whispered as she slipped back to their lab bench.

“What did I do?” Dean hissed. “I'll tell you what I didn't do! I wasn't over flirting with some girl!”

“Oh, yeah, as if you don't spend the class mooning over Malakhim!” Charlie snorted. “Oooo, look at those big blue eyes,” she continued, batting her eyes in an exaggerated manner.

Dean tried to surreptitiously glance over at Castiel, just to make sure he wasn't listening in, but fortunately, he was engaged in some kind of deep discussion with Prof. Henricksen. That nerd – he had probably improved the spell!

Charlie was now grabbing the textbook. “So how bad did you mess up our potion?”

“Oh, it's our potion now?”

“Not if you're gonna get me a D on this assignment.” They wrestled over the book for a moment, but Dean finally let her win. “You added foxglove?”

“Just a dash,” said Dean. He didn't want a D either, to be honest. It might get him kicked off the Quidditch team! “You think it'll be OK?”

Charlie bit her lip. She wasn't a pure-blood witch, which was just fine with him. She was half muggle, like Dean, but she was really into this stuff. She had organized her first coven when she was in kindergarten. Dean hadn't really been interested in witchcraft at all until he got cold-cocked by his admission owl, and even then, he didn't perk up until he realized that you could spend a good sized chunk of your time zooming around on a goddam supercharged broomstick. Now he was Bloomingdale's second highest scoring chaser ever, a record he was determined to beat. But that meant he had to stay eligible for the team, which also meant keeping up his grades.

“It oughta be OK,” Charlie finally decided.

“Ought to be? Does that mean it's OK?” Dean demanded.

“You wanna start over?”

“No.” _Oh fuck no._

“Well then. Hand me the powdered toadstool.” Dean grabbed a bottle and she carefully measured off a dram, which she then dropped into the brew. Both of them cringed, but other than a pretty lavender-colored mushroom cloud, not much at all happened.

“Great. We're good,” said Dean. “Let's hurry this up. What's next?”

“'Carefully fold in essence of yarrow,'” Charlie read. “Wait, that's not folding!” she fussed when Dean started larding it in.

“Eh,” he reasoned. Dean had stuff to do.

“Hello, Dean.”

For the second time that lab period, Dean flinched. But this time he found himself confronting not a grim-faced professor, but rather the stern but appealing countenance of Castiel Malakhim, who was now standing on the other side of the lab bench, staring straight at him.

Dean dropped what little composure he still had and, at the same time, dropped the rest of the handful of essence of foxglove into the simmering potion. This, as it turned out, was not a good idea. There was a poof sound, and quite suddenly the entire world had turned bright purple.

But it wasn't the entire world gone suddenly lavender – it was rather a good portion of the lab bench as well as Dean's hand, the front of Dean's robe, and (he could only assume) his entire face.

The entire classroom stilled to silence.

Castiel, who was over on the other side of the lab bench, and apparently completely unaffected by the spell's misfire, let his head fall to the side and gazed at the scene for a long moment. 

“I was wondering, Dean,” he finally said. “Do you need help with your potion?”

 

“I just wanna look coooool for once, Sammy.”

Dean sighed and leaned back in his chair, regarding a stray strand of hair that was still dyed a livid purple. After the mishap in Potions class, they had taken Dean to the head of his House, Prof. Singer, who rolled his eyes and after much muttering about “idjits,” had offered a counter-spell that removed most of the pigment, and had then counseled a shower with shrinking violet soap, which really did leach most of the purple away.

“You could shave your head and grow a goatee,” Sam muttered, not bothering to pull his nose out of the laptop computer he had been perusing.

“ _You- You_ shave _your_ head, Doris Day,” Dean riposted. Dean was a great chaser, but not an ace at verbal comebacks.

“At least I don't look like the Purple People Eater,” laughed Sam, shaking his perfect shoulder-length chestnut hair just to be an asshole.

Dean let his chair come down and put his head down on the library table where they were sitting. This space had once been one of those big bookstores, so it probably hadn't changed much from the retail days. Well, other than the fact that some of the tomes would now bite you if you stood too close. Since Sammy was a big old nerd he liked to hang out here. Dean had grabbed a couple of Quidditch magazines to browse while his brother studied. 

“Hey,” said Sam, who must have felt at least some guilt over teasing his big brother. “C'mon, Dean. Could be worse. I mean, you could've come out NeimanMarcus green, right?”

“I guess so.” Dean flipped backwards through the magazine, wondering if he could get Cas to attend a Quidditch match.

“As it was, you just looked dumb in front of your boyfriend.”

“He's not my boyfriend,” Dean protested as his brother grinned and then grinned some more. He would have said more, but just then, the librarian, Miss Moseley, came by and gave Dean the evil eye.

“Dean,” Sam whispered when she had gone away. “Look. Why don't you talk to him, ask him out for butterbeer?”

“I don't like butterbeer since they started making it with margarine!”

Sam threw up his hands. “I don't understand why this is so complicated, Dean.”

“No, you don't understand.” And truly, Sammy didn't have a clue. Castiel was from one of the oldest wizarding families, and who was he? Dean Winchester, some dumb half-muggle. 

“I mean, with Jess-”

“Cas and me is nothing like you and Jess!” Dean whisper-shouted, which is never a good idea. But then of course, who should show up but Jessica herself, Sam's pretty and amazing and smart and did-he-mention-pretty Nordie House girlfriend.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, suddenly holding out her wand like she was going to duel or something.

Dean held up his hands. “Uh, nothing?” 

“No, not you, him!”

Dean and Sam simultaneously turned their heads back to where she was pointing her wand, and then returned their stares to Jess. “Who?” they chorused.

“Him!” Jess flicked her wand, and suddenly a kid appeared right behind them. 

“Oh, hey,” said Gabriel Malakhim, tossing off the cloak he had wrapped around him. “Hey, you 'd think you'd get a warranty on an invisibility cloak.”

“Gabe, what the hell?” sighed Dean. Gabriel was Castiel's older brother, but unlike Castiel, he had been sorted to the NeimanMarcus House, and he was every inch a slimy, sneaky bastard.

Castiel's family was strange: usually families all tended to get sorted to the same house. Michael, the eldest, had been a Nordstrom, and had also been one of the house's most outstanding students. Everybody had expected Lucifer, his younger brother, to be Nordstrom as well, but were taken by surprise when he ended up as a Neiman instead. Then Gabe had followed him to NeimanMarcus, and, for reasons no one could explain, Raphael ended up in JCPenney.

It had been the talk of Chuckworts when at last baby brother Castiel had been admitted. The tension was incredible when his turn at sorting came and the boy had caused a hatstall that lasted a good three minutes (one of the top ten longest ever). It was said that many in the temporary dining hall annex breathed a sigh of relief when at last it was revealed that young Castiel, like his eldest brother, was headed to House Nordstrom. 

Gabriel Malakhim, by contrast, was a full-throated slimy, slithery, and did we mention sneaky NeimanMarcus. An invisibility cloak certainly wasn't the first evidence of such. 

“Well, the little woman is handy with a wand, I'll give her that,” said Gabe, giving Sam a friendly bump on the shoulder. Sam flinched back and instinctively checked his shoulder for marks.

“Gabe, what are you doing here?” Sam grumbled. After a glare from Jess, he added, “And please don't refer to my girlfriend as my “little woman,” OK? It's sexist.”

“What's wrong with being sexy?” asked Gabe, lowering himself into a chair at Sam and Dean's table and then elaborately crossing his legs and pouting his lips.

“Just slither off, NeimanMarcus,” Dean told him. “We're trying to get some work done here.”

“By checkin out a web page of puppy videos?”

Sam suddenly slapped his laptop shut. “I'm, uh, doing research for Transfiguration.”

Gabriel placed his hands behind his head. “That is why I stopped by. I can offer some help.”

Jess pulled the laptop around and opened it up. “Ooo! Puppies!” she squealed.

“You’ve come bringin’ cat videos?” asked Dean.

“Not help for your brother, fruit loop! Help for _you_. A little birdie told me you're having some issues with the ol' GPA.”

“That's none of your beeswax, Gabe,” Sam sniffed.

“Dude, did you actually say, ‘none of your beeswax?’” Dean inquired, to a glare from Sam. Sam was probably right about Gabriel, but geez he sounded like a real prig sometimes.

Jess reluctantly tore herself away from a video on Sam’s laptop of about a dozen adorable little Corgi puppies circling a food bowl. “Gabriel, we’re not interested in any of your schemes.”

“Schemes? Who said anything about a scheme?” Gabriel, who had been distractedly flicking his wand, was now enclosed in a gigantic soap bubble which began to float upwards. 

“It’s always a scheme with you,” Sam told him. 

Gabe, who was now clear of the table, sitting grinning and cross-legged inside the shiny bubble. “You wanna keep your Quidditch eligibility, don’t you, Bucko?” he asked Dean. 

“Well,” Dean muttered. His grades could use a bit of work. He wasn’t doing great in Potions. And then there was Transfiguration! Gabe could be kind of a doof, but at least he wasn’t as bad as his brother, Luci. Luci was just plain evil.

“C’mon Winchester, don’t be a pansy.”

Jess and Sam exchanged a glance, and then two wands poked into Gabe’s soap bubble. With a loud pop, he suddenly crashed into a display of Forbidden Books.

“Ouch!”

Sam and Jess were already on their way out. Sam nodded at Dean, who lingered for a moment over Gabriel. But then he spied Miss Moseley charging over, and skedaddled with his brother and Jess.

 

“Did you hear?” asked Jo through a mouthful of fried string beans. 

Jo Harvelle always heard everything first of anyone because her mom ran the trucker cafe where a good part of the wizardry staff all hung out. They would tend to get blasted on hellfire rum and, when Ellen Harvelle wasn't going after them with a fire extinguisher, they tended to spill gossip about the school. 

It hadn't been a popular move when Prof. Shurley, the head of the school, had joined forces with the immensely popular Long-Haul trucking school (famous for their late night TV ads featuring the slogan, “We don't give a truck!”), but it had saved them from impending bankruptcy. But since the school didn't really offer any actual trucking classes, it really didn't make much of a difference, other than making the name harder to remember, and a bother to fit on stationery.

“What didn't we hear?” Dean dangled a chili cheese fry, though he was actually gazing moodily towards the Nordstrom table, where a certain wizard in training was stuffing his pretty face with double cheeseburgers. Many years ago, when the edifice that comprised the school had still been a shopping mall, this area had been the food court. It was a large, open area, with wide skylights allowing the northwest's sometimes weak sun to infuse the entire space with a soft light.

Cas's eyes especially shone here, Dean noticed, framed as they were by long dark lashes.

“Dean, are you mooning again?” sighed Sam, who was taking way to long to cut his chopped salad into smaller bits.

“You can't trust him! He's practically a Neiman,” Charlie chimed in, to enthusiastic nodding from Dorothy, who had a mouth full of the chili cheese french fries but was too polite to speak. The entire Bloomingdale table cast surreptitious glances towards the NeimanMarcus table, who took no notice as someone (it was probably Gabe – because it was always Gabe) had cast a spell on their fish and chips to make it all swim away.

“He is not a Neiman,” countered Dean.

“You know as well as I do he put the Sorting Hat into a twenty minute stall over whether to go NeimanMarcus or Nordstrom,” Charlie argued. 

“Wait,” said Sam. “Twenty minutes? Is that true?”

“Totes McGoats,” attested Charlie, and that was about as true as you can get, despite it all being false.

“Dean, why don't you just go talk to him?” Jess asked, because she was nosy as hell. Well, no, she was actually trying to be nice. Talk about mooning - she was sitting over here at the Bloomingdale table because she and Sam were ga-ga over each other. 

Dean muttered something.

“Dean, Cas is totally nice!” said Jess. “I'm a mudblood, and he's always _super nice_ to me.” “Super nice” being Jess's highest praise because she was such a girl.

Dean, desperate now to change the subject, asked, “Anyway, what's the gossip, Jo?”

Jo, who'd been at the edge of her seat during all of this, bursting with the news, twirled her wand around (as she was apt to do) and exclaimed, “Chuck is totally gonna rent us out for the Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament!”

“Oooo,” said most everybody at the table, through various mouthfuls of food.

“Wait,” said Sam, who was always a buzzkill. “What exactly is the Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament?”

“Ummmm, well, I'm not exactly sure,” Jo confessed. “But it's probably pretty cool!”

“Ya dummies,” said Gabriel as he grabbed for a chili fry. “It's the biggest wizarding truck-off west of Kansas City!”

“Hey, outta the chili fries!” scolded Dean, batting Gabe's hand away from the basket. 

“Don't touch the merchandise, Winchester!”

“Where did you come from, Malakhim?” Sam demanded.

“I'm hidin' out. Luci is after me! I made his dinner swim upstream. You guys gotta hide me!”

“I could turn you into a chili fry,” Charlie offered, holding up her wand.

“Wait,” wailed Jo, leaning over the table to lower Charlie's wand. “I wanna hear about the Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament!”

Gabe grinned. “Wellll, it’s the ultimate test of long-haul trucking and wizardry!”

“That’s very informative, Gabe,” grumbled Sam, who seemed to favor the chili fry option.

“No wait!” Gabe held up his hands. “You get a highly dangerous magical creature as cargo, and then you haul it over a course lined with booby traps.”

“Magical booby traps?” Sam asked, despite himself. 

“You got it, Bucko! One misstep and - blammo!” Unfortunately for him, as Gabriel was supposedly trying to lie low, he emphasized the last point by aiming his wand at the basket of chili cheese fries and setting up a rather loud, fiery explosion. This in turn attracted the attention of the NeimanMarcus table, who, hungry for their vanished seafood dinner, raised wands and formed an ad hoc posse to pursue Gabriel.

“Aargh, exit Gabriel, stage right!” Gabe uttered. He threw his cloak around him and then hurled himself under the Bloomie table and thus crawled out of the cafeteria double-time, his Housemates in hot pursuit.

“My chili cheese fries,” wailed Dean, holding up the semi-fried container of a former melted cheese delight, an expression of infinite sadness on his face.

“Did you hear?” Charlie asked. “Magical creatures, dude!”

“I’d rather have onion rings.”

“Simple!” Charlie rolled her eyes and flicked her wand. A lump of raw onions appeared on Dean’s burnt plate. “OK, I’m still working on that one. But don’t you see? They may have dragons around here! Actual dragons!”

Dean huffed in frustration and tried a slice of onion. He nodded and grabbed another. “Yeah. So?”

“Dragons? Dude, you don’t wanna see a dragon?”

“I guess I want to see a dragon?” Dorothy agreed, though she sounded a bit dubious about the whole thing.

“They’ve gotta have them penned in somewhere around here! How can you hide a dragon?”

“Uh, hello! Wizards?” said Sam. “And you know, you could get demerits for sneaking around.”

“Demerits, schmerits!” said Charlie brightly. “Come on, Dorothy! We got some exploring to do.”

Charlie took off and Dorothy, somewhat apologetically, followed. 

“They’re gonna get in so much hot water,” Sam tutted.

“Yeah, especially if a dragon breathes into it. You guys wanna go get some actual food?” asked Dean. Because, food.

“I’ve got some actual food!” Sam held up his stupid salad. 

Dean grabbed a tray, which had somehow evaded Gabriel's conjuring, and dumped the charred remains of his dinner on it. “I'm going through for another round. Can I get you anything, Jess?” he inquired, making a point of not asking his stupid rabbit-food brother.

“Can you get me a milkshake? Strawberry?” Jess asked.

Sam's eyes lit up.

“And two straws, please?” Jess added, as Dean left, muttering over how stupid those two were. He had to sort of go by the Nordstrom table on the way to the kitchen, where he may have glanced at Castiel, who may have glanced at Dean and sent him into colliding into a NeimanMarcus. Dean managed to juggle the tray around so nothing fell off, but he had to sadly conclude that yet once again he had utterly failed at looking by any means cool around Castiel.

“Distracted are we, Winchester?” inquired the NeimanMarcus, whose name was Fergus. Dean didn't know much about him, other than he was another oily Neiman. And the kid's mom taught Divination. It was a lot of crap about tea, Dean guessed. Sam was taking her class, and had bitched that she couldn't make out a darned thing because of her weird accent.

Fergus didn't seem to be in Lucifer's circle, which was something. Not much, but something.

“Just had my dinner destroyed by your Housemate, Fergus,” Dean grumbled as he slid the remains of his chili fries into a nearby trash can.

“ _Crowley_.”

“What?”

“I prefer Crowley, if you don't mind,” said the kid. He was fiddling with the sleeve of his robe, and Dean noticed for the first time he had a tattoo on his arm. Maybe he wasn't horrible after all?

“OK. Crowley. You have some ink?”

The kid smiled and pulled up his sleeve. Dean recognized some of the symbols. And the other arm had a great serpent on the bicep.

“Nice!” He had been trying to talk his dad into getting some preventive markings, but, well, John Winchester was John Winchester. “I've been thinking of having something done.”

“Don't think – do,” Crowley suggested. “I can put you in touch with some local artists if you'd like.”

“Hey, yeah. Cool. Maybe,” Dean hedged. Being awesome versus Dad's wrath? That was a toss up.

“So,” confided Crowley, who had edged in a little closer. “I've heard you've expressed some interest in the Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament?”

“What? Where did you hear that? No. Who cares!” Why would you even want to drive a stupid truck when you could fly around on a broomstick?

“Oh, a little birdie might have told me. There's prize money, you know.”

Wait. Did someone say money? “I'm listening,” Dean allowed.

Crowley smiled, and there was something in that smile that reminded Dean uncomfortably of a cat with a mouse. “A school usually doesn't permit any but seventh year students to enter. But there are ways around it.”

“Are you entering?”

Crowley's eyebrows shot up. “Oh, no no no. I haven't the talent. But we've all seen you at the sporting matches. You're the one for speed, aren't you? And one can't match the courage of a Bloomie, can one?”

“Well,” said Dean. It was all true, of course. He didn't usually like kids from other houses using, “Bloomie,” but he'd let it slide.

“Crowley, when did you ooze out of your hole?” Dean turned around, startled to see Meg Masters standing there alongside none other than Castiel. Meg was a Neiman who had somehow slithered her way into being buddies with Cas. She was a metamorphamagus, and was always changing her hair around from blond to brunette and back, but her voice was pretty distinctive, utterly suffused with sarcasm.

“Meg. Pleasure,” said Crowley, in a voice that made it clear it wasn't.

“You need to steer clear of this one, Dean,” Meg told him, pointing to Crowley so there would be no mistaking.

“How would you know, Meg?” Dean protested. “I can hang with whoever I want.” But he couldn't help glancing over at Cas, who was staring straight at him, shaking his head and mouthing, “No.” 

Dean was already uncomfortable, but this much eye contact from Castiel was just too much. “I- I gotta get a milkshake!” he announced, and then turned his back on the lot of them and marched towards the hamburger stand, trying hard not to hyperventilate. Cas had been looking straight at him! Him, Dean Winchester! As if in a trance, Dean gathered food onto his tray and wandered back into the dining room, where he found himself sitting down next to Sam and Jess.

“Uh, Dean,” Sam inquired after a while.

“What?”

“Uh, did you get Jess's milkshake?”

“Hey, it's OK, Sam,” said Jess, who was getting up. “I'll go grab it.”

Dean watched Jessica leave the table, and then glanced over at his tray. He noticed he had gathered a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a baconburger, a hot dog, chili fries, a baked potato, mashed potatoes, lasagna, Salisbury steak, tacos, spaghetti and meat sauce, macaroni and cheese, a bread roll, a slice of pumpernickel, a bagel with cream cheese, Jello with whipped cream, a slice of German chocolate cake, a slice of apple pie, a slice of pumpkin pie, a scoop of sherbet, and a mint.

“Can I have the mint?” Sam laughed.

Dean pushed the tray over to Sam. “I'm not really hungry.”

“Even for the pie?”

Dean's eyes wafted over to the pies. He put his finger in the whipped topping of the pumpkin pie and tasted it. 

“No,” he admitted, stumping even himself with the confession. “Sammy, why can't I ever look … damn I don't even wanna try looking cool, I just wanna look normal....”

“It's Cas again?” sighed Sam, who was helping himself to a bite of the lasagna. “Dean, you know this is vegetarian? You really are out of your brain, man.”

“I know, I know!”

“Why don't you just _talk_ to him?”

Dean laid his head on the table. Didn't Sammy realize? Talk to Cas? That would be far too simple for a Winchester!

 

 

“Don't make me go out there!” shrieked Kevin.

Lightning struck and thunder crashed nearby, sounding as if to emphasize his point. Kevin Tran was the Nordie's Seeker, and he was just a little high strung. Not that it mattered, as somewhere along the line, someone (you said “someone,” though it was inevitably Gabe) had “upgraded” the school's only Golden Snitch, thus making it impossible to actually catch. The faculty had shrugged and, not having the budget to go buy another one, simply limited the intramural games to one hour, notwithstanding timeouts and the halftime show. 

Dean didn't mind at all, as he was a Chaser, and he found this made his position a lot more interesting. Between him and his buddy, Benny, they were the highest scoring Chasers in the school's history. Benny, who was a big kid, had started out as a Beater, but switched positions since he and Dean played so well together. Jody had brought in her friend Donna as the other Beater. Jo had just started as a Chaser, but she was good, and Dean looped in Sammy to play Keeper. Sam wasn't the Quidditch fan that Dean was, but he seemed to have a knack for the game, and rarely let in scores (except that time he'd lost his shoe, but that was another story). The opposing teams had started calling him “The Moose:” big and impossible to get past. 

So that was the Bloomingdale team. And here was another fact: Bloomingdale's never canceled a practice session, no matter what the weather. Never ever ever ever! It was a thing.

The Quidditch grounds were located in what was once the parking lot. There hadn't been a lot to do to improve it, other than putting in temporary stands. Also, to make some extra money, they allowed parking for the local boat show, so currently there were a number of trucks with boats hitched up to them lined up outside.

“Seems a mite damp out there,” commented Benny, who was standing in the silhouette of the stadium doorway. Thunder boomed again, mere seconds after the lightning flash. This storm was close.

“You afraid of steppin' in a puddle?” Dean taunted.

“I just done my hair up all pretty,” Benny snickered.

“Are you guys insane?” Keven stormed. “Look at it out there!” Wind howled, and the goal posts shook. “We're gonna get struck by lightning.”

“Maybe it'll supercharge my broomstick!” Jo enthused. Dean grinned and slapped her high five.

Sammy entered, wearing several layers of plastic garbage bags. “Ready to go,” he said, looking around happily. 

“Got your moose ears wrapped up tight?” asked Dean.

“They're antlers. Get your facts straight.”

“You people are out of your minds,” said Kevin.

“What is going on here?” demanded Prof. Tran, who arrived flanked by Jody and Donna. Prof. Tran was Bloomingdale's coach, as well as teaching Mostly Dead Languages. She did not suffer any nonsense. “Is this a practice?”

“Did you see it out there, Mom?” Kevin pleaded. And at this point we must pause to explain that possibly half of the reason Kevin was on the team at all was because he was related to the coach.

Jody made a show of peering out at the stadium. “Looks like a Quidditch field to me,” she announced. Donna grinned. “Maybe a few more boats than usual. They may be useful today!”

Prof. Tran held a whistle up to her lips. “I'm gonna count to three,” she said, locking eyes with Kevin. “One.”

The team – save Kevin – mounted broomsticks.

“Mom!” 

“Two.” The team flew for the field.

“Are you-?”

“Three.”

And in an instant, Kevin, cursing under his breath, had mounted up and flew into the howling winds.

“Let me see some drills!” Prof. Tran shouted, her voice aided by a PA spell.

Dean shared a grin with Benny and gave thumbs up to Jo. Soaring around an open field at crazy speeds. This was living! Thunder boomed, lightning flashed, the wind howled and the rain poured down, and he was having the time of his life. He grabbed a Quaffle, and he, Benny and Jo lined up in front of the goal post, practicing tossing it through as Sammy invariably caught it, even in the pouring rain. 

Dean gripped the slippery strap on the Quaffle as Benny passed it back. He lobbed it to Jo and flew low. This was the move they'd been working on. 

Flying side by side, Benny and Jo made for the goal post, tossing the Quaffle back and forth. They charged the goal post as Sam got ready. 

But then at the very last minute, Benny dropped the ball. Dean flew below, grabbed it and, standing up on his broomstick, tossed it over the bottom of the goalpost, right between a startled Sammy's legs.

“Woohoo! Goal!” hollered Jo.

Sam was still staring down. “You tricked me!” he yelled, not certain whether to be happy or sad.

“We've been practicing that one on the sly!” Dean shouted into the wind.

But then, all of a sudden, the rain ceased.

“Oh no,” groaned Sam.

Dean pulled up on his broomstick, and then followed Sam's gaze into the stands.

Lucifer was standing there, arms outstretched, waving the clouds away as a beam of sunlight struck him.

The whistle sounded, and Prof. Tran was marching up towards the stands. She stood below them, hands on hips. “Malakhim, you know that weather spells are absolutely forbidden on school grounds!”

Lucifer let his arms drop to his sides and inclined his head.

“Professor Shurley's office. Now,” ordered Prof. Tran. Lucifer attempted to act nonchalant, but even he was intimidated by Prof. Tran. She was not someone to be trifled with. He shrugged and followed her out of the stadium.

“Unstoppable force meets immovable object, huh?” said Sam. All of them were hovering on their broomsticks, staring at the stands in the suddenly calm, clear air. Several of the Neimans had gathered in the stands, including their Quidditch team and some followers. 

“God dangit, the stands are crawlin' with NeimanMarcus jerks!” Benny complained. “How can we practice our new moves without them findin' out?”

But Dean spotted a non-Neiman face in the crowd as well. Castiel was sitting with horrible Meg, who had gone blonde today. Although Castiel was oblivious, Meg looked Dean's way, grinned, and then hooked an arm around Cas's shoulders. 

“Let's run some drills. Come on!” Dean barked. Sam and Benny exchanged a puzzled glance – which was weird for them, because they didn't like each other a whole lot – but then they shrugged and got into position. They went through a couple of rounds, but then, perhaps because the strap was wet, or perhaps because he wasn't paying attention, Dean muffed catching the Quaffle when Jo lobbed it to him. He tried to recover without letting go, but then he was going too fast and getting too close to the goal posts.

“Dean!” Sam shouted, but then he darted away just in time to keep from crashing into Dean, who smacked right into the circular goal post at his midsection, unseating himself from his broomstick. Momentum sent him spinning all the way around the post once before he tumbled to the ground.

To Dean's utter horror, the entire team had surrounded him within an instant afterwards. “I'm fine,” he huffed, trying to wrest away Sam's helping hands, as Jo used her House scarf to fan him. “Just knocked the wind outta me.”

Sam and Benny helped him to his feet, despite his protests. Dean discovered, to his horror, that he was completely caked in mud from the soaked field. He stole a glance up towards the stands. Cas was no longer seated next to Meg. But his relief was short-lived, as he now saw Cas had evidently run down to the bottom row, to the railing overlooking the field. Was Castiel concerned about him, Dean wondered? No, that was impossible.

“Damn, you're the human mudbath,” chuckled Benny.

“He's a golem!” said Jo.

“I guess I should get washed up,” said Dean. “I hate to waste practice time.”

“Hey, I got a really great cleaning spell!” said Jo. “I got one my mom uses all the time!”

“All right, all right, let's try it.”

“Turn around,” she ordered, so she was facing his muddy back. 

Dean waited. And then waited some more. “I'm ready.”

“Just minute! I'm trying to remember.”

Dean turned around. “Wait, I thought you knew this spell.”

“Just wait!” Jo scolded. “Turn around, turn around.” She raised her wand. “ _Cloroxino!_ ” she shouted, giving her wand a flick.

Dean felt a fizzle and smelled ozone. 

And then he felt a rather strong breeze.

“Uhh, Dean-” Benny started, after surveying the damage.

Jody and Donna giggling like mad. This was not a good sign!

“Don't tell me,” Dean whispered to Benny. “Jo just burnt off the back of my clothes, didn't she?”

“You tol' me not to tell you,” Benny reasoned.

Dean took a deep breath. Then he snatched away Jo's scarf, wrapped it around his bare bottom, and fled the field, the sounds of NeimanMarcus laughter echoing in his ears.

 

Dean usually liked his Care of Magical Creatures class. First off, for whatever reason, the teacher really liked him and gave him good grades. Prof. Fitzgerald was one weird dude! But he was nice. And they usually got to meet outdoors, so it was the exact opposite of the stinky, stuffy potions class. Today they were out on the rolling hills on the edge of the rainforest. The ground was still damp from yesterday's rainstorm, but Dean could smell the fresh air and feel the warm sun on his skin. Benny, who was usually his lab partner for this class, hadn't shown up yet, but that was fine. Benny had sensitive skin, and usually had to slap himself in lots of sunscreen to come out on sunny days.

As it happened, Castiel was enrolled in this class as well – did we forget to mention that? Like in Potions class, Cas tended to hang out with the other Nordstroms. But unlike that godawful Potions class, they weren’t assigned seats out here, so if Dean just happened to end up standing next to a certain person during the lectures, well, what could he do?

Dean sidled up beside where the Nordies were clustered, suave as heck. But quite suddenly, Castiel turned around to face him. Face him! And not only that, Cas said, aloud, for _everyone_ to hear, “Hello, Dean.”

Well, what could he do to something like that? Dean immediately had someplace else he needed to stand, and that was definitely far, far away from Castiel and his friends. He may have yelped and turned beet red (his memory was a bit hazy at this point) but then he began to swiftly back away from Castiel, only in his haste he didn’t notice the rather large rock right in his path. Slam! He was on his back, gazing up at the grey skies and wondering if it was going to rain and if so if heaven would do him the favor of completely melting him away from humanity.

“Dean!” Now Castiel was hovering right over him. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” Dean grumbled. Even though he was far from “fine.”

Cas held out one slim, pale hand. Dean stared for a long moment. Castiel had lovely hands. Well, of course he did! What was there about Cas that wasn't completely other-worldly? The hand flicked, and Dean's brain finally came around to the realization that he was supposed to take it. Cas was offering him a hand up. 

Gingerly, Dean slipped his hand into Cas's, and with a jerk, he was wrenched to his feet. Damn, Cas was stronger than he looked. And he looked.... Well, Dean had never had quite this view before, as he was now pretty much nose to nose with Cas, staring into his wide, curious eyes. 

“I said, are you all right, Dean?” Cas's full lips formed the words, and Dean couldn't help but stare. He realized that he was probably expected to form some sort of reply. His clouded brain struggled to form a reply.

“Cas, I-”

“BLART WORMS!”

Dean stepped back a full pace, the spell broken by the sudden intercession of Prof. Fitzgerald, who was toting a wriggling burlap sack and holding up the largest pink angleworm Dean had ever seen in his life.

_“Ffffffoooot!”_

“Did that worm just … fart?” asked Dean. Cas was at least three steps back and holding his nose.

“That was a belch!” Prof. Fitzgerald corrected, whipping the worm back into the bag. “You're gonna be collecting 'em this period! Good for spells! And the like!”

“We're collectin' … farts?” asked Benny, who was now hovering nearby, all wrapped up in a hoodie underneath his robes. 

“Belches!” Prof. Fitzgerald insisted. “Come on, y'all, let's get to it!”

With one last regretful glance at Cas, the students broke up into groups. The disgusting worms were distributed, along with some gossamer bags that could supposedly contain the special magical elements in the worms's digestive output.

“How the heck can that guy claim we're gettin' belches?” Benny grumbled when they had their bag about halfway filled. “I can't tell one end from the other on this thing!”

Dean, who was occupied rubbing the worm's tummy with his forefinger, which was supposed to encourage fermentation in the annelid's digestive system, but in their specimen, judging by the wiggles, just seemed to tickle the dumb thing. “You got the bag ready? I think it's gonna blow again.”

Benny clutched the thin bag in his stubby fingers, attempting to smooth it out. “And where the Sam Hill is Charlie? She should be helpin' us!”

Dean gingerly held the worm and tried to think. The last time he'd seen their Housemate, she had been running off with Dorothy, aiming to find a dragon. Which had been at least a day or so ago. Oh no! “Uh, I wonder if she's OK?”

“Why would you wonder that?” asked Benny, who then cursed when the stupid magical worm belch bag ended up adhering to itself once again. “Boy, you never trust a redheaded witch! That's what my daddy always told me.”

“Hey, Benny, wasn't your mom a redhead?” asked Dean.

“He knew whereof he spoke, my Daddy!”

Dean rolled his eyes, and sighed as once again their worm produced a rather half-hearted belch. Both boys looked up at the sound of a commotion across the room, where several NeimanMarcus kids were hunched over their blart worm. They had evidently been tickling the worms tummy with their wands, not their fingers (as instructed, because Neimans were like that, damn them), and the worm's belly had bulged out until it was big and red as an apple.

“Well, damn, they're gonna get good grades,” said Benny.

“Uh, I don't think so,” Dean replied, as Prof. Fitzgerald ran over, waving his wand. 

“Everybody, hit the deck!” Prof. Fitzgerald shouted. “Mayday! Abandon ship!”

Dean and Benny glanced at each other, not quite certain whether to drop or run. They went with running, clutching worm and bag, along with most of their other classmates. 

“ _BLARRRRRRRT!_ ” The area was suddenly covered with a dark cloud of foul, sulfurous smoke, as bad as anything Dean had smelled in Potions class. Prof. Fitzgerald emerged from the grey fog, dragging a frazzled NeimanMarcus by the collar. It was Ruby, and she looked like her eyebrows had gotten singed off.

“That there – that was a blart worm fart!” announced the professor. 

“Ewwww,” said Dean.

“Got some bad news, class. Gotta cancel for today, as I take this student down to the infirmary. Can't be too careful! We'll meet again Thursday afternoon, and be sure an' bring your fireproof robes along!”

Dean and Benny shook their heads. “I'm gonna get out of the sun,” Benny told him, and took of towards the school building. 

Dean let their blart worm, who he was still clutching, loose on the grass. To his surprise, it coiled around his ankle, and then burrowed itself beneath the moist soil. 

“Dean.” 

It was Cas once again. Twice in a day. Maybe Sam was right, and he needed to just talk to Cas. Maybe, Sam and Jess were right. And Jo. And Benny. And Charlie.... All right, he needed to think of something suave and witty to say!

“Uh. Hey, Cas.”

Cas's mouth twitched into an almost-smile at the sound of his name, and Dean's heart melted a little. “Dean, I was wondering if you had recovered....”

“I missed the blart worm fart. Ours just belched. But it didn't even really belch. It was kind of … a dud. But we couldn't tell one end from the other and the bag didn't open.” And now he was talking too much!

Castiel's head listed to the side. “Actually, I wasn't referring to the blart worm, Dean.”

“Oh.” _Duh!_

Castiel seemed to steel himself. “You- You took quite a fall during your Quidditch practice yesterday. I was concerned. I mean, ah, Meg and myself – we were both concerned. Both of us. Concerned.”

Well, that was a roller coaster ride! As Dean tried to parse this, he was once again interrupted by the sound of his name.

“Deeeeeeean!” Charlie hissed. She was peeking out from behind one of the mossy trees inside the dense rainforest that bordered the school. Looking around to make certain the Care of Magical Creatures class had dispersed and there was no one around, he went over to her, Cas following along behind.

“Charlie! Where were you? You weren't in class.”

Charlie's eyes brightened when she spotted Castiel. Despite acting stealthy just a moment before, she suddenly popped out from behind the tree and cooed, “Oooo, are you Castiel. Hi Castiel! I'm Charlie, and I'm Dean's bestie!” She popped Dean in the shoulder to demonstrate the power of their relationship.

“Ow!” yelped Dean. That smarted!

“Yes, I know who you are,” Cas told her. “You are Charlotte Bradbury.”

“Ugh, I hate that name! It's Charlie!” she insisted. 

“All right then, _Charlie_.”

“What brings you out here, Castiel?”

Castiel tilted his head. Dean realized that he did this when he was puzzled. He also realized that it was kind of adorable. “You beckoned to Dean and called him over here.”

“Oh, yeah, that!” said Charlie, waving a hand. Dean now noticed that she looked like she'd been hiking through deep woods – there were small rips in her clothing, her boots were caked with mud, and there were twigs everywhere, including scattered in her long hair. 

Dean pulled a yogi mantis off Charlie's jacket. It did a downward facing dog on Dean's palm, and then leapt off. “Charlie where have you been?”

“I was looking for the dragon. Like I told you!”

“Charlie, we're not even sure there is a dragon.”

“But there is! I found it. It took me a whole day, and Dorothy kind of broke up with me because it appeared our relationship goals differed (she was interested in not getting kicked out and my goal was to find a dragon), but I finally found it!”

“Where?” chorused Dean and Cas. 

Charlie grinned.

 

You could see how Charlie had gotten herself all twigged up – it took a bit of walking, and there weren't really any good pathways. Dean started to wonder how the heck they had gotten anything as big as a dragon out here. And then he started to wonder how they were gonna get back, as it was late afternoon, and it got dark quickly here on these late autumn days. 

But then he heard a branch snap and looked back and espied Cas coming along, and his mind went to more pleasant occupations. 

Cas was, for the hundredth time, extracting his robes from some underbrush. His clothing was always at least two sizes too big, and was not suited for such pursuits. 

Calling for Charlie to slow the heck down, Dean went back to help Cas untangle. “Why dontcha just take your robes off?” he asked. 

“Take my robes off?” Cas replied, his eyes wide (and rather close to Dean). 

“Uh, just a suggestion. I mean, they're a little loose on you, ya know?”

“These are my brother, Michael's robes,” said Cas. “I inherited them from him.”

“Oh, I didn't wanna offend you-” Dean started, but Cas was already starting to whip off the robes. His Nordstrom uniform was rumpled and far too big as well, but at least you could see there was a boy in there somewhere.

Cas folded up Michael's robe in his arms and puffed his chest. “Yes, that feels better, Dean.” 

Dean couldn't help himself, he leaned forward and fixed Castiel's tie. “There ya go.”

Cas beamed, and Dean felt his cheeks start to burn. “Actually, I know this area. That lake over there?” He pointed to the still lake hidden behind a scrim of trees. “Meg and I used to come up here. That is, before it was posted as out of bounds.”

“You and Meg … went to the lake?” Dean's heart stopped. Did that mean Cas actually liked Meg? As in, _liked_ liked? So much they went out to a hidden lake?

“Yes, it freezes over in the winter!”

_What?_

“Come on you guys! We're almost there!” Charlie called impatiently.

Dean and Cas followed her, leaving Dean with many questions. Charlie moved through the woods and then disappeared into the brush. “Hey, wait up, Charlie!” Dean called. They hurried to the place where she had disappeared and, after pushing through some branches (Dean was glad Castiel had dispensed with his robes, as he was about to do the same) they suddenly came to a clearing. Charlie was standing up ahead, waving at them.

“Over here! You gotta see!”

“Wait up!” Dean called again, and then they were all running across the field towards an improvised fence line next to a large shack. 

“How would they even get a dragon all the way out here?” Dean puffed as he ran with Cas.

“Dean, dragons fly.”

“Oh!” And that got him thinking – had they all ridden dragons out here? Because that would be awfully cool.

Charlie was already standing on the bottom rung of the ramshackle wooden fence. She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. Dean and Cas ran up beside her, and Dean stopped short. The fence was built right beside a deep, sheer-sided pit carved into the ground. “Whoa.” He squinted into the darkness of the pit. It was getting really dark, so he couldn't see very well. “Hey, what's that?”

Something darted out of the shadows. Or didn't dart – more like waddled.

“What is that thing?” Dean repeated as Cas conjured a light with a lumos charm with his wand.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “It's a Corgidragon, silly!” 

“A what? Is that even a thing?”

The beast inside the pit stared up at them. It had emerald eyes, scaly green skin, and a lolling pink tongue. And … was it wagging its tail? 

Charlie dug into her robes and brought out a bag of cookies. She tossed one into the pit, and the dragon – or whatever it was – snapped it up and whipped its tail. It stood on its back paws or feet or whatever. They were stubby as heck, which is why it seemed to waddle. It flapped the forepaws, as if begging for food, and extended a pair of glossy golden wings. 

“Is he begging for food?”

“Yeah!” said Charlie. “Think I can teach him to roll over!”

She tossed down another treat, and the Corgidragon caught it, and then it circled around in contentment. Though Dean noticed it seemed to be favoring one of its front legs over the other.

“He is hurt,” said Cas, pointing his wand towards the dragon's forepaw. It was true – there was some kind of thorn or bramble sticking out of the paw. Or the claw. Or the foot or whatever. What in holy hell was this stupid thing?

“Yeah, he picked up a thorn or something.”

“Will you give me a light please, Dean?” said Cas.

“Uh, what exactly are you doing, Cas?” Dean inquired as Castiel began spreading out his robes on the ground.

“I am casting a levitation spell, Dean. I mean, hopefully.” Cas flicked his wand and muttered something Latin-y sounding, and suddenly, the robes floated up, just like a magic carpet!

“Cool! Can you show me how to do that?” Charlie asked. 

“Wait, what are you doing now?” asked Dean.

“I must provide assistance to that poor creature,” said Cas, stepping up on the robes. 

“Cas! That's a dragon down there! I mean, it's a weird little dragon, but it's still a dragon.”

“Here, take some cookies,” said Charlie who proffered the bag to Cas. He chomped on one of the cookies. “I mean for the dragon.”

“Oh. Keep your light on me, please,” said Cas, who was settling down on the robes. After stowing some cookies away in his pockets, he took a deep breath, and then sailed over the fence and floated (in a bit of a wobbly manner) down into the pit. 

“He's nuts,” whispered Dean. He glanced over at Charlie. “Hey, dude, you got any of those cookies left?” Charlie handed over the bag, and the two hung on the fence, feeding their faces and watching with astonishment as Cas floated down and down into the pit. 

The dragon, too, watched him descend, tilting its head and staring with jeweled eyes. Castiel finally reached the bottom of the pit and carefully stepped off his enchanted robes. He turned and looked up at the dragon, and then took a couple of long steps backwards. Even a short and stumpy dragon, like the Corgidragon, was still apparently quite a bit larger than a teenager.

“Cas!” Dean called down. “The cookies!”

Castiel stared for a long moment, and then, as if urged by Dean’s words, fished into his pockets for a cookie. He extended his arm, holding the treat out as far as possible.

“Careful, Cas!” Dean shouted. But then the monster stuck its head forward and somehow gobbled up the cookie without taking any of Cas’s fingers with it.

Just to make sure, Cas counted off his fingers. All breathed a sigh of relief and gobbled more cookies.

“Is he hurt, Cas?” hollered Charlie.

Cas now directed his attentions towards the dragon, who had gone back to staring at him. He carefully stepped forward, leaned down, and gently touched the dragon’s forepaw.

At once, the beast reared up to its full height. 

“Oh, he is so eaten,” sighed Charlie.

“Cas!” Dean screamed, as he now wished to jump down there and help. “Don’t be scared!”

“But I am scared, Dean!” Cas called up. “In fact, I’m absolutely terrified.”

“His paw, Cas!”

“I think it is rather a claw than a paw, Dean.”

Dean slumped against the fence and counted to ten. “Cas, get the thorn out of his paw. Or foot or claw or whatever the hell.”

Once again, Cas squared his shoulders and approached the Corgidragon. He pointed to its paw (or foot or whatever), and the dragon came back down on four feet, which seemed to have the effect of taking about twenty years off Cas’s life. After a short period of hyperventilation, Cas once again approached the wounded extremity, and, with a lot of encouragement from Dean and Charlie, finally grabbed at the twig that was poking out of the sensitive pad.

“You go, Cas!” Dean shouted. “One two three, pull!”

Castiel gripped and closed his eyes. The dragon closed its eyes. Dean and Charlie closed their eyes.

There was dead silence.

And then everything happened at once. Cas pulled, the twig yanked out, and he fell on his butt.

The dragon shrieked, extended its golden wings, and flew and entire circle around the pit.

It alit right next to Cas, mouth opened, wide and hungry.

Castiel sat frozen, still holding the twig.

“Cas!” Dean shrieked. “Get out of there!” He started to jump into the pit, but Charlie grabbed his robes and clumsily held him back.

The dragon leaned towards Cas.

The dragon extended its tongue.

Gratefully, the dragon licked Castiel from head to toe, as if it were tasting an especially delicious ice cream cone.

And then it stepped back and … _panted?_

Dean and Charlie stood staring down as Cas tried to brush off the icky dragon spit. 

“I think it likes you!” Dean called. And indeed, the dragon lowered its head and allowed a disbelieving Cas to very tentatively scratch it behind where one of its ears should be whilst the dragon happily wagged its tail. It gave Castiel another full-body lick which somewhat stalled things.

All of sudden, the lights snapped on all around the pit.

“Who is that?” came a voice.

“Oh shit,” said Dean.

 

Dean sat outside Prof. Shurley’s office. This was not the first time he had found himself in this same rickety chair. It was also not the second or third time. In point of fact, they were practically on a first name basis! 

Truth to tell, he was a bit nervous this time. It didn’t help that Prof. Shurley had talked to Charlie and Cas separately. Actually, Cas never even got into the office – he got sent off with a stern warning and an order to shower off the dragon drool. 

Charlie emerged some time later, offering Dean the last of her cookies. 

“He says for you to go on in now,” she told him.

“How was it?” asked Dean, gnawing on a cookie without his usual relish.

She shrugged. “He had me reinstall Windows 97 on his computer, and then he pretty much let me go.”

“Oh.” Well, that was encouraging. He grabbed a handful of cookies and jammed them into his face, and then, chipmunk-cheeked, made his way into Prof. Shurley’s cluttered office. He found the wizard peering into his ancient computer's dusty monitor.

“Uh, Professor?” Dean ventured as he came around the desk. Prof. Shurley suddenly yelped and threw an arm over his computer screen, which was filled with many young women wearing peaked witch's hats and little else, and the splashy logo, “ _ENCHANTING ENCHANTRESSES_.”

“Uhh, think you wanna minimize screen,” Dean suggested as Prof. Shurley pounded on his computer with the flat of his hand a couple of times. Dean finally felt sorry for him and, leaning forward and grabbing the mouse, clicked out of the screen.

“Yes. OK. All right. Having some software issues!” Prof. Shurley told him. 

“Yes sir.” Dean was thinking about dinner now. And possibly Cas in the shower. But mainly dinner.

“So, young man,” said Prof. Shurley, staring over his reading glasses and putting his hands in a steeple and trying his very best to act like an authority figure. “I suppose you know that your status at this school is currently hanging by the very finest of threads.” He pulled back, obviously pleased at his turn of phrase.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m sorry. We just wanted to see the dragon. Because, dragon. You know?” Dean bit his lip. This had sounded a lot better when he rehearsed it in his head.

“I know. I was young once, remember!”

Dean nodded. Though he didn’t remember, obviously, because Prof. Shurley was way old. He was like, definitely in his _forties_ or something.

“But that’s not what I’m talking about, son,” the wizard continued, and suddenly, Dean’s heart sunk. 

“Uh, you mean Potions?”

“Potions. Transfiguration. Defense Against Dark Arts.”

“I’m doing OK in Care of Magical Creatures!”

Prof. Shurley stopped and scratched his long, grey beard. A bright blue butterfly fluttered out, and he waved it away. “Yes, that may be, but what of your other classes?”

“Potions – that class is horrible. And stinky!”

“Well, I'll give you that.”

“And I was doing great in Transfiguration class until we came to the animal part.”

“Stuck on Animagi? Well it can be challenging to some-”

“And Dark Arts? Look, I try to pay attention, but the teacher, Prof. Barnes, man, she's hot!”

Prof. Shurley began to gaze at the wall. “She is pretty hot,” he agreed. And then he blinked, as if realizing he was, you know, a professor. “But, that's no excuse young man!! As you know, we have a tight budget these days, and it's hard for me to reconcile giving out a scholarship for you and you brother-”

“Wait, Sammy? But Sammy is doing fine! He's a big nerd.”

“Yes, which would make this all a pretty big waste if I have to expel the both of you.”

Dean's heart sunk. He could take being kicked out of school, but he'd never forgive himself if it hurt Sam as well. He needed to think of something, and quickly. Hopefully, it was something that didn't include having to actually study.

“Is it true about your father, Dean?” asked Prof. Shurley, who was now twiddling with a somewhat charred phoenix feather.

“Huh?” Dean was trying to come up with excuses for his poor scholarship. He wondered if he had missed part of the conversation.

“John Winchester? I know your mother was a witch. A highly skilled one!”

“Yeah, she was from one of the old families.” Dean struggled to remember all that family lore. 

“And your father...?”

“Was a trucker.” Dean warmed to the memory. “Grampa Henry was a founder of their union – the Men of Big Rigs.”

“That's fascinating,” Prof. Shurley remarked, “if a little sexist.” He twiddled the feather.

“Hey, guys in those days, they didn't go for newfangled notions like intersectionality. Anyway, Grampa was a trucker; my uncles were truckers; and my cousins are truckers.” Dean's mind drifted back to days on the road beside his dad, baby Sammy all swaddled up and tucked in the jump seat. They had bedded down at every kooky motel and and sampled the pancakes at every diner along Route 666. 

Prof. Shurley carefully tucked the feather into his beard for safekeeping, and then leaned forward. “You know, it's against the rules for anyone but seventh year students to participate in the Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament.”

“Uh, yeah, OK.”

“I mean, it's just not done.”

“All right.” Dean hadn't thought to enter. He had left the trucking world behind when he'd gotten his owl note from the wizarding academy. 

“I would caution you against it!” Prof. Shurley then added, speaking very quickly, “Even though the prize is a lot of money and would solve your scholarship problems, as well as the school's.”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, that's all the time we have,” said Prof. Shurley. He stood up abruptly, accidentally knocking the wand in his pocket against his computer. The computer once again danced to life, the monitor now popping out a 3D image of an athletic lady wearing a witch's hat doing a pole dance.

“Wow, she's got amazing adductors,” said Dean, as he stood entranced before Prof. Shurley bustled him out of the office, shutting his magical door with a pronounced thump as a good dozen locking mechanisms all clicked in place.

Dean stood in the hallway outside the office for a moment. “He isn't watching pornography again, is he?” inquired the painting outside the office. The painting's nameplate had long since vanished, so Dean was never clear as to the identity of the individual depicted. He was dark-haired and pale, impeccably groomed, and usually munching on some delicious snack food. He gave Dean the shivers, but the dude was always polite to him. 

“Pole dancers. Though I think you wanna classify them as artists,” Dean told him. “Or at least athletes.” It was supposed to be good training for Quidditch, but Dean had tried it once and the results hadn't been pretty at all.

The pale man sighed, quietly slicing his Chicago style pizza. “No wonder this place is falling into wrack and ruin!” He glanced at Dean. “But how rude of me. Please, have a slice.” He cut off a slice of the painted pizza, eased it to a painted plate, and then proffered it to Dean.

“Uh. Thanks, but, not hungry.” Of course it was a lie, Dean was always hungry, especially for pizza. But he’d sampled some of the pale man’s pizza before. It tasted of gouache, plus it left his teeth stained orange.

“Dean, have some pizza,” urged the pale man, in a tone that was rather polite but obviously a command. 

Dean stepped forward and took the slice, wondering if there was some place nearby where he could dump the thing. It was oily, but not that kind of oily. “So, uh, Prof. Shurley was telling the truth? The school is in trouble?”

The pale man dabbed his chin with a fine cloth napkin. “Tessa,” he called. “Would you kindly bring me the financials?” The pretty, dark-haired girl from the painting next to his darted out of her own frame and, after a pause, entered the pale man's painting bearing a pile of notebooks, which she deposited on his table. Dean thought that she looked a bit like Wednesday Addams, but grown up. “Thank you, my dear,” said the pale man. She turned her head, winked at Dean, and departed. 

Dean blushed as the pale man flipped through the notebooks. “Yes, yes. Um-hum. Worse than I thought,” he tutted. “We owe a great deal of money to the Malakhim family. A great deal.”

“Cas's family!” Dean blurted.

If the pale man picked up on Dean's blunder, he didn't comment on it, nor even raise an eyebrow. “Yes. Their direct ancestor originally founded this potty American adjunct of the original school of wizarding. A gaggle of buffoons and rascals. But they have been wanting control back ever since.”

“You're- You're from the original school then? In England?”

The pale man smiled thinly, and went back to his pizza. “Now, that would be telling.”

Dean thought for a moment while the pale man chewed. He actually tried a grudging bite of his pizza, though he immediately regretted it. “What do you know about the Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament?” 

“Oh, don't force me to regurgitate my meal – and this had been so pleasing. Yes, the Tri-Wizard _Trucking_ Tournament is rather ridiculous attempt by colonials to adapt an historical tradition to your less than sumptuous shores.”

“There's a big prize? Enough to pay off the debts?”

“More than enough. In point of fact, I would rather think-” 

But just then, some rather tacky music began blasting through Prof. Shurley's door, despite all the magical barriers. “ _Bay-bee take off your coat!_ ” crooned the singer.

“Of all the-” the pale man sputtered. “Tessa!”

_“Real slow.....”_

“Yeah, boss?” inquired Tess from her painting.

_“And take off your shoes….”_

“It is impossible to finish my repast amidst this cacophony! Kindly help me transport my dinner to more salubrious surroundings.”

_“I’ll take off your shoes….”_

“I got it,” said Tess, who appeared in his painting. Each grabbed an end of the heavy-appearing dining room table and, as the singer insistently urged someone to leave their hat on, disappeared off the edge of the canvas.

Dean stood alone in the corridor. He glanced down at his painted plate of painted pizza and shrugged. Shaking his head, and looking around for a trash can, he made his way towards the escalator to the Bloomingdale dormitory, hoping it would be in a placid mood. Generally the worst one could expect was a scratch or bite, but it had been known to occasionally snack on an unwary first year. Tonight, it literally growled at Dean, the metallic treads on the steps shining like grim fangs.

“Look, it's been a long day and I just wanna get to bed, OK?

An alarming rumble cascaded up and down the moving stairway. Dean sighed. Magic could be badass, but sometimes it was just plain aggravating. 

Dean contemplated the plate in his hand. “You hungry?” he asked. The stairs shimmered. “Here, have some pizza,” he said, tossing pizza and plate at it. The escalator pounced – or rather made a gesture that was as close to pouncing as a large, stationary object could feign. The pizza got caught in the maws and then ended up smeared all up and down stairway. The escalator ground to a halt, as apparently, impressionist pepperoni gummed up the works.

Dean took his chance and sprinted up the steps stalled steps. “Bon appetite, jerk!” he called, though he realized he was going to probably pay for it the next time he rode down.

He made it to the dorms, and was quite surprised to see Sam was still awake. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, trying to assemble a jiggly-saw puzzle. Dean hated those things – just as you thought you'd found the right piece, the things would all wriggle around so they wouldn't fit any more. Sam groaned and tossed away a piece just as a wave of contortion undulated through the set. “Ugh!” he said, tossing aside the piece.

Dean brought out his wand. “ _Quitthatyousonuvabitch_!” he ordered, flicking the wand. Immediately, the jiggly-saw pieces halted their motion, but the picture (which had been some scenery) also dissolved away.

“Oops.”

“Dean,” said Sam, running hands through his girlie-hair. “You gotta stop making up spells like that!” 

“Well, it worked,” said Dean, squatting down and picking up a piece. “Hey, now you got a great snowstorm!”

“It was supposed to be Mount St. Murgatroyd!” Sam groaned, holding up the box, which depicted the smoking volcano.

Dean grabbed the box from his brother, and watched as lava spilled down the side of the mountain. “Hey, this is pretty badass.”

“Yeah,” said Sam dejectedly.

“Why are you still awake, nerd?” Really, Dean didn't expect to see Sammy up so late unless he was studying.

“Waiting to see if you're expelled!” Sam punctuated this with a big yawn. 

“Not yet,” Dean told him. He stood and extended a hand. 

“I heard about the dragon.”

“Yeah. I'm safe for now. But you gotta get to bed now, kiddo.”

Sam took his brother's hand and got to his feet. Dean noticed that his runty little brother was now nearly his height. That was rude! Dean ruffled Sam's hair and they grappled a bit before Dean got an arm around Sam's shoulder and they started off towards the bedrooms.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean ventured as they reached their bunks. “You know our scholarship thing?”

“Yeah,” muttered Sam, who plopped face down into his bed.

Dean sat down on his own bunk. “It covers … both of us? Like, it's a package deal?”

“Yeah, it's a package deal. Me, and your worthless butt.” Sam turned his head so it was not quite smothered in his pillow. “Why?”

“Nothing.” Dean kicked off his shoes and rummaged for his pajamas.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?” 

“The dragon – was it cool?”

“It was awesome!”

“Awesome,” muttered Sam, who turned back into his pillow and began to snore softly. Dean sat alone on his bed for a time.

 

“Come on guys, mom just made a pitcher of butterbeer!” Jo called as Dean, Sam, Jess and Benny followed along into her mom's diner, The Three Blades. 

Dean cringed as he head the insistent barking. Sure enough, Whiskey Jack, the Harvelle's enormous, slobbery, red-eyed hellhound came galumphing out to greet them.

“Keep him away from me,” Dean pleaded, grabbing Benny by the shoulders and positioning his friend between himself and the dog.

“What's you problem, brother?” Benny sighed, pulling his hoodie back over his head. “Ain't nothing but a pup.” He gave the dog a pat on the head and headed inside, out of the sun.

“No!” wailed Dean as Whiskey Jack now assaulted him with dog smooches.

“Heel, Jackie!” implored Jo as the others headed into the store. The dog showed utterly no sign of hearing this, and continued its happy assault on Dean.

“Stop it stop it stop it!”

“Naughty puppy!” said Jo, finally tugging on Whiskey Jack’s collar. “Who's a naughty puppy?” she scolded, though she didn't appear terribly sincere. Whiskey Jack wagged his tail and then barreled inside. 

“Just don't like dogs,” Dean muttered, picking himself back up and trying to rub away the sulfurous drool.

“Oh, I gotta spell from that. From Mom! Stand back.” Jo pulled a wand out of her back pocket and, biting her tongue in concentration, waved it at Dean before he had time to object. “ _Expectorata!_ ” Unfortunately, as was rather the course for Jo's spells, things didn't go as planned, and Dean ended up literally dripping in drool.

“Oops!” giggled Jo. Dean was not amused. “Hang on a minute. I’ll go get my mom!” 

“Bring me a towel!” Dean yelled after her. He stood for a moment, shivering, dripping drool, and thinking of the delicious butterbeer he was missing.

The front door banged open again, but it wasn’t Jo and Mrs. Harvelle – it was Crowley, the skinny little NeimanMarcus. This time, he was accompanied by a Hellhound of his own. She was even larger than Whiskey Jack, if that were possible. But unlike the Harvelle’s bruiser, this dog trotted politely at Crowley’s heel.

“Had a spot of bother?” inquired Crowley as he reached the bottom of the steps. 

“Hellhound spit,” sighed Dean. 

“Yes, they can do that,” said Crowley. “Can’t they, Juliet? Yes, my dear.” Indulgently, like a parent doting over a child, he patted his dog’s head whilst she wagged her tail. “We can get that tidied up,” he told Dean, whipping out his wand.

Dean cringed, expecting to get really drenched with something foul this time. But at Crowley’s cry of, “ _Neatandtidy_ ,” and a flick of his wand, Dean was once again clean and pressed (though his hair was fizzling, just a bit).

“Oh, thanks dude!” said Dean.

“No worries,” said Crowley, pocketing his wand. “Learned it from me mum.” 

Dean thought back to Sam’s comments on Prof. MacLeod’s Divination class. He said he hadn’t learned a darned thing because she was always going on about tea. Did she really have spells as well?

And then he remembered another thing he’d heard from Crowley. “Uh, you know how you were mentioning the Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament?” he asked, trying his best to appear casual.

“Still trying to get yourself entered, are you?”

Dean bit his lip. He hadn’t been trying to get himself entered? Well, until just now. “No. I mean, yes. I mean … maybe?”

Crowley smiled, and the dog wagged her tail. “It can be done,” he told Dean, his voice low. “However, I might request a very small favor from you.”

 

 

“You're gonna talk to him? Finally?” bellowed Charlie.

“Shh!” said Dean, looking desperately around the Potions classroom to see if anyone might have overheard. Charlie and her big mouth. “Besides, I'm not gonna talk to him. I'm just gonna talk to him.” Wasn't this totally clear? Like, duh!

For some unknown reason, instead of reeking like the inside of one of Sam's old running shoes, today everything down here smelled like flowers. Dean didn't have any idea what kind of flowers, just that it was off-putting. He wondered it was some of those first year girls making love potions or something dumb like that. 

He glanced around the room. Prof. Henricksen had his feet up on his desk, working the criss-crossword puzzle in the Daily Prophet and Big Rig News Supplement. The letters kept escaping as he was trying to place them, so he wasn't paying much attention to his class, as he was engaged in coming up with new curses.

Castiel was across the room, but he was chatting with Meg again. Ew! Dean needed to get him alone. How could he pry off that annoying girl. 

“Charlie?”

“What?” 

Dean stepped back, startled, as he hadn't realized Charlie was leaning right below him, also staring at Cas and Meg.

“Don't be so obvious!” he whispered.

“Oh, not like you?” she laughed.

“Look, make yourself useful! I need you to distract Meg.”

“Meg? Ew,” said Charlie, as that was about the general opinion of Meg. Well, to all except Castiel, apparently. “Distract her – how?”

“I dunno! Use your feminine whiles. Or whatever.”

Charlie narrowed her eyes and sniffed at the potion they were supposed to be working on. It smelled flowery, but everything smelled flowery. She frowned and tossed in some eye of newt, which only caused it to smell sweeter.

“C'mon, Charlie! Be a pal!”

“All right,” she sighed, starting over.

“Wait!” Dean grabbed her by the arm.

“Now what?”

“Um, what should I say to get Cas out of here?” Dean asked.

Charlie looked like her head would explode from sheer stupid. “Use your masculine wiles! Tell him you gotta lift a heavy box or something.” Charlie stormed off, leaving Dean still repeating what she'd said. A heavy box? Yeah, that was actually a good line. He tried it out. “Lift a heavy box.” Yep. He idly tossed some crunchy mastodon bone powder into the bowl, creating a very tine, very fragrant lavender mushroom cloud. 

Dean hied over to where Charlie had now evidently distracted Meg into some discussion about shoes or some girlie stuff. As they lined up their steel-toed boots, Cas stood apart, wearing his customary oversized robes and a bewildered expression.

“Uh, hey, Cas,” ventured Dean.

Cas whirled around, and was quite suddenly only a few inches from Dean. “Hello, Dean.”

“Box heavy lifting need,” Dean explained, gesticulating wildly towards the storage area. “Or, uh, something?”

“You require assistance carrying a heavy box?” Cas inquired, leaning in even closer.

“Yep,” squeaked Dean, voice suddenly ratcheted up an octave too high. He turn on his heel and marched away quickly - too quickly to assess whether or not Cas was even following him. He hurried out of the classroom, right past Prof. Henricksen (who was cursing under his breath stabbing with his wand at some floating silent E's that had escaped his crisscrossword puzzle) and out into the corridor, where he stopped short before the storeroom door, which was of course, locked. He suddenly remembered that he hadn't asked for the unlocking charm.

“Sorry,” came a voice just behind him. Dean turned. Cas had been following at his heel, and had nearly collided with him when he stopped short. Now, there he was, standing right there.

“Um,” said Dean, face flushed. Cas continued to stare, lips slightly parted. Dean knew this because right now, heart beating, he was staring at those lips. 

“Is the door locked, Dean?” Castiel inquired. 

“Didja ask him didja ask him didja ask him?” asked Charlie, who for some reason was now out here too.

“Ask me what?” inquired Cas. Thankfully, he broke eye contact, and Dean took a long, long breath.

“For Gabe's invisibility cloak so he can go on his caper!”

“Charlie,” hissed Dean. Oh, boy, was she gonna get it.

“Caper?” inquired Cas. But then he turned to face Dean, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “I am sorry, Dean, but I will not ask Gabriel to borrow his items.”

“But Dean needs it, don't you, Dean?” pleaded Charlie.

“Um,” said Dean.

“I do not borrow things from my brother,” Castiel explained. “We do not get along.”

“Not even for _Dean_?” asked Charlie, poking Dean several time in the arm to indicate that was who she was talking about.

For some reason, this appeared to throw Cas for a loop. “I am afraid it is out of the question, Dean,” he said in a contrite voice.

“Well,” said Dean.

“Are you sure?” asked Charlie. “It's important!”

Castiel looked from Charlie to Dean and back and Charlie, and then back at Dean, which Dean stood and sweated. “Perhaps.... Maybe there is an alternative?”

“What?” chorused Charlie and Dean.

“Perhaps … we could use _my_ invisibility cloak instead?”

For some reason, Dean's brain kicked into action. “Wait, you have one of those too? Does everyone have one but me?” This didn't seem fair at all.

“Sound great!” said Charlie, who was now shaking Cas's hand, much to Cas's bemusement. “You got a deal!” She slapped his back in a chummy way and then, with an exaggerated wink towards Dean, headed back towards Potions lab, where there followed the sound of a muffled explosion accompanied by the smell of slightly burnt lavender. 

“So,” said Dean.

“When will we go on the 'caper?'” Cas inquired, his words forming quotation marks around the final word.

Dean abruptly realized that Castiel intended to come along with him. “Oh, uh, you don't need to come along, buddy?”

“I am your buddy?”

“Well, sure thing. But, um, you know, we might get caught?”

Castiel stood up straight in his oversized robes. “Gabriel has told me that I need to participate in more adventures!”

“Gabriel? Wait, but didn't you just say you don't like Gabe?”

Cas was now staring so hard Dean was worried he was gonna get a hole burned right through him. (Not that he minded.) “My relationship with my brothers is … complicated.”

“Complicated? OK, I guess I can see that.”

“In many ways, I envy you your bond with your brother, Sam.”

So Cas actually knew Dean was related to Sam and they were brothers and he knew Sammy's name? For some reason, Dean found himself blushing again. And he felt all warm like he had just guzzled a butterbeer. “Yeah, Sammy and me, we're good.” 

Suddenly, there was a sound like the buzzing of a swarm of jumble-bees. An entire swarm of vowels poured into the hallway. The As, Es, Is, Os, and Us (and sometimes Ys) hovered for a second and then scattered down the corridor.

“Come back here!” barked Henricksen as he came barreling out of the classroom. He turned to Dean and Cas. “Don't just stand there, boys! Help me round up my vowels!” he ordered.

“Oh!” said Cas, his mouth a perfect circle. 

“Get the letters!” And then Henricksen went chasing off down the corridor.

Dean glanced at Cas. “We'll meet tonight after dinner,” Dean told him. And then both raised wands and went racing after the escaped criss-crossword letters.

 

Later, during dinner, Dean rubbed at his arm where he’d been stung by an E. 

“You shouldn’t scratch it!” Sam chided. “It’ll get infected and then we’ll have letters all over the place!”

“I may have something,” said Jess, who rummaged around in her knapsack. Jess was training as a healer, so she often had various poultices and unguents on hand. 

“I have a spell!” Jo piped up, raising her wand. Several hands reached out to pull down her arm. “It’s from my mom,” she pouted. But alas for her too many Bloomies had felt the pain of Jo’s healing spells.

Jess pulled out a small tube. “Here we go, heart of wallflower! This should do the trick.”

Dean cringed. “Does it smell? Will it turn me purple? Will it give me scales?” he asked, mindful of the treatment at Chuckworts often turning out much worse than the malady.

Jess blinked. “I used it on Sam’s Garuda Pox.” She opened the tube. “Here. It smells a little like vanilla.”

She waved the tube under Dean’s nose. Jess was right – the aroma was actually kind of nice. He rolled up the sleeve of his robe and let her apply a dab to the E sting. “I didn’t even hear it buzzing,” he noted. “I just started to itch!”

“Probably a silent E. Those are the worst!” 

Dean glared at his arm. The swelling went down a little, and the itching eased up a lot. He sighed. He was going on his mission with Cas later tonight, and he really didn’t want to grow a tail or turn to gingerbread or any of a dozen things that could happen beforehand. Jess was still digging in her medical bag. She had brought out some bandages with famous wizards printed on them, a guinea pig, and a full set of oxygen tanks. “Here, just take the tube!” she told Dean handing it his way as the guinea pig sniffed at his dinner.

Dean gingerly took the tube and tucked it in a robe pocket. You need to be careful of these magical ointments. Fortunately, Jess was usually on point with her remedies, unlike Jo Harvelle. 

Speaking of whom, Jo was now up out of her seat and jabbering with someone. Oh, hell, it was Cas! Dean awkwardly leapt up out of his seat at the table, somehow getting his leg tangled in the chair on the way. After rather a lot of clattering, Dean turned to Cas, just as Jo was introducing herself. “I'm Jo Harvelle and my Mama is Ellen Harvelle and we run Harvelle's.”

Castiel, who was clutching a package and looking more confused than usual, reached out to shake Jo's hand. “We've heard a lot about you!” Jo continued, and Dean felt his cheeks burning.

Cas's eyes narrowed to suspicious blue slits. “Has Jessica told you about me?” he asked, indicating Jess, who giggled.

“No, somebody else!”

“Who?”

“Come on, Cas, we gotta get going,” said Dean, who grabbed Cas's arm and began to half-march, half-drag him from the dining hall. It occurred to him that this was perhaps not an auspicious start to their secret mission, given that now pretty much all of the students sitting at Bloomingdale tables were staring and pointing at them. 

“Am I late for our meeting, Dean?” Cas inquired as they finally escaped the dining hall (thank the Wizards!) and hurried down one of the less trafficked hallways. “You had said to meet after dinner.”

“No, you're fine, Cas. You're perfect,” said Dean. That got a small smile, so Dean had to smile back, and then he got distracted by Cas's mouth, which was a thing that sometimes happened, before he finally glanced down at the package Cas was clutching to his chest and remembered what he was doing. “Uh, did you bring it?”

Castiel held up the package. Dean saw it wasn't so much a package as something that looked like some kind of origami. Suddenly, Cas flicked his wrists and the “package” disappeared in a flash. Cas stood in the hall, his arms extended, clutching something that appeared constructed of wisps of gossamer.

“I can't see it,” said Dean, tilting his head.

“It's invisible.”

Dean instantly felt like an idiot. He puffed his cheeks. “Can I see how it works.” A ghost of a smile played at Cas's lips. He whipped his arms around, and quite suddenly disappeared!

“Cas?” Dean whispered. He extended a hand and, to his relief, touched Cas's shoulder. But then he was further startled when all of a sudden, Cas's head appeared, seemingly floating, cheshire cat-like, in the middle of the hallway. 

“That's pretty cool,” Dean admitted. He was suddenly glad that Cas was accompanying him on this mission. He thought an invisible cape would be pretty easy to use, but it looked like this took a bit of flourish.

“There is plenty of room for two,” Cas told him. And now (evidently) he had lifted up one side of the cape, as Dean could see the right half of Cas's body. “But you will have to come in closer.”

Well, Dean didn't wait for any more invitation than that. He slipped inside the cape and felt something soft and light fall around his shoulders. He looked down and, to his surprise, could no longer see his own body. Cas appeared to be maneuvering the invisible cape again. “Perhaps if you drape an arm around my shoulder?” he proposed. Dean wasn't aware of exactly where his arm was, but he moved in closer, Cas shifted, and then Dean felt the same spider-web type touch over his head. To his relief, he could once again see down to his legs, but now the hallway appeared to have a thin, grey webbing covering it. 

“Do you smell … vanilla?” asked Cas.

“Um, no,” said Dean.

“We should practice maneuvering,” Cas proposed. They walked up and down the hallway. It was a little like a three legged race, Dean thought, if you maybe had downed six butterbeers beforehand (not that he had ever done anything like that) and then wrapped your head in a weird, glittery veil.

Oh, and also, if you kind of had a crush on the person you were running with. Not that Dean knew anything about that, either.

Nevertheless, they were making a good show of it. Cas looked tiny inside his oversized clothing, but he was almost Dean's height, and they seemed to fit well, walking together. They grew bolder, and decided to try riding up one of the escalators while wrapped up in the cloak. The one here in the nearly deserted south wing had always freaked out Dean a little. Rumor had it it had digested at least a dozen unwary freshmen! 

They mounted the creaking mechanical stairway with some trepidation and began to glide upwards. As it turned out, it was probably the least eventful magical escalator ride in Dean's memory. He guessed that the treacherous mechanical stairway was unaware of them in their invisible state. They had risen a good two thirds of the way to the top when he thought to ask Cas about this.

“Hey, Cas-”

Castiel immediately shushed him, but evidently it was too late. The escalator quite suddenly screeched to a halt.

“Cas?” Dean whispered, upon hearing a rather unsettling mechanical growl.

“Dean, on the count of three,” Cas whispered. As Dean held his breath and the escalator squealed, vibrating its saw-toothed stairs, Cas counted off. “One. Two. Three.”

They were off, running as fast as they could. There was a snap, and the stairs pancaked, turning the stairway into a giant slide. Cas, who was trying to keep the cloak wrapped around them, slipped down, but Dean caught the handrail and grabbed tight to Cas. With all his might, Dean caught Cas around the small of his back and literally tossed him to the top of the stairs, right out of the cape. Cas grunted as he fell, and Dean tried to climb up after him, but instead tripped up and fell on his face. He turned and realized his shoelace caught in the stair.

“Cas!” Dean was about to fall into the snapping lower stairs, but felt a giant tug. Cas had grabbed the edge of the invisible cape and was now playing tug of war with the escalator over Dean. Dean struggled to kick off his boot. “It's got my shoe.”

Cas twisted around so he was now sitting on the cape. He grabbed his wand from a pocket and waved it at Dean. “ _Solvunteum!_ ” he cried. Dean's boot untied itself, and as he pushed off and Cas pulled, he launched upwards, to the top of the escalator, landing right on top of Cas.

They lay that way for a moment, breathing hard, twisted in the cape, their faces a mere breath apart, eyes wide.

Cas was the first one to recover somewhat. “Dean.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I mean, I think so.” Reluctantly, he pushed himself away from Cas and looked down to make certain all his nether regions were intact. It didn't help that they had an invisibility cape twisted around them, but after a bit of untangling, it appeared that both boys had survived their adventure more or less unscathed.

Except for one thing. “I guess I lost my shoe,” said Dean, regarding his unshod foot. 

“I'm sorry, Dean,” said Cas, who seemed to genuinely regret this.

“Hey, don't be sorry! If it wasn't for you, I'd be escalator lube oil right now!”

Cas was a little downcast. “It was the only spell I could think of.”

“You did good,” said Dean, reaching out to hold Cas's chin. He was pretty cute when he was contrite. Well, Cas was pretty cute no matter what. 

The escalator screeched. Both boys turned. Something came down hard on Dean's head.

“Ow!” yelled Dean. That smarted! 

Cas bent down to pick up the object. “Oh, your boot.”

Dean rubbed his head and grabbed the shoe. The shoelace was kind of shredded, but it seemed otherwise intact. “Yeah, great.” He sighed and sat down to put it on, making the best of what was left of the laces.

“Dean,” said Cas, who squatted down next to him. “We need to take regarding noise! The cloak confers invisibility, but we may still be detected.”

“Yeah. Good safety tip,” muttered Dean, who secured his boot with a knot.

“Dean.”

Dean rubbed the growing knot on his head with irritation. They had been having a moment! Stupid magical escalator.

“May I ask, why are we going to such extreme means to obtain a book from Prof. MacLeod? Why doesn't Fergus simply ask her? After all, she is his mother.”

Dean bit his lip. “Uh. Because he asked me to?”

Cas chewed on this for a while. Then he stood, extending a hand towards Dean. “All right.” And that was all it took. Dean gripped Cas's hand and let himself be pulled upwards, into Cas's close proximity once again. 

“Shall we?” asked Cas.

“Shall we … what?”

Cas pointed around the corner. “Prof. MacLeod's office is down that hallway, if I recall correctly.”

“Oh, yeah, the book.”

“That is our quest, isn't it?”

Dean tried to remind himself why he was off on this fool's errand. He needed to get the book for Crowley so the kid would pull some strings to get him entered in the dumb trucking contest so he could win it and save their scholarship. Right!

Castiel picked up the invisibility cloak and evidently began sorting it out, as he appeared to be pawing at the air. “Is your cloak OK?” Dean asked.

Cas looked up at him. “It is a little frayed at the edge. I believe it came out better than your shoelaces though.” Dean nodded, relieved. It had been really great of Castiel to offer the use of his cloak when he really barely knew Dean. It would have sucked if it had been messed up or torn by a greedy escalator. 

“OK, let's get going,” said Dean. As he had done before, Castiel wrapped up himself and then held out an invisible flap for Dean to tuck himself under. Dean slid an arm around Cas's shoulders and they charged off down the hallway. 

They came to an abrupt halt outside Prof. MacLeod's classroom. The doorway was ajar, but the lights were off. As Dean peered through the filmy cloak, he could see a bookcase on the opposite wall. He glanced at Cas and nodded, and the two crept quietly into dimly lit room. They maneuvered carefully around the empty desks, all set with porcelain tea cups (Sammy said Prof. MacLeod was nuts for tea) towards the tall bookcases that dominated the back wall. Dean leaned forward to peer at the bindings and was horrified to realize that he could not read them. “Son of a-” he whispered.

“What is it, Dean?” Cas whispered back. 

“I can't read 'em. What language even is this?”

Cas took his look. “This one is Latin. That one is Enochian. And that one is Parseltongue.”

Dean craned his neck to stare at Cas's profile. “Wait. You can read 'em?”

“Of course.”

Dean was for a long moment caught between admiration for his companion, and annoyance at him being a big old show-off. 

“What is the title we're seeking, Dean?”

“ _Book of the Ding-Dong-Damned._ ”

“That is an … unusual title.”

“You're tellin' me?”

Dean and Cas jointly took a big step back and Cas subjected the bookcases to one of his more intense scowls. As he waited, Dean's mind started to wander, and he began to wonder what he would have to do to make Cas stare at him that way. Finally, Cas pointed upwards, Dean following his gesture, even though he could not read the titles. “I believe it is that one, Dean.”

There was a big old book on the top shelf that looked kind of spooky and weird. Even though he couldn’t read the writing on the spine, Dean was pretty sure that’s where Cas was pointing. And he was also pretty sure that it was up beyond where he could reach. 

He looked around for a ladder – didn’t libraries usually have ladders? Not that he spent much time hanging out in libraries. If only Sam had been here. He was a big old nerd, and he’d know what to do.

“Dean, I believe the book to be out of our reach,” Cas told him.

“Yeah, tell me another one,” Dean sighed. 

“But I think if I were to stand atop your shoulders….”

Dean ceased his mental calculations regarding dragging a chair over and then maybe putting that chair on top of another chair. Cas was right, that might do it! “But can we both keep inside the cape when we’re doin’ it?” he asked.

“I think so. I have been taking ballet classes since I was young, so I have quite good blance.” 

_Ballet classes?_ Dean chalked that up as something to ask Cas later. Dean couldn’t really judge whether the cape would cover them as the cape was, you know, _invisible_. But so far, Cas hadn’t steered him wrong, and he’d definitely saved him from a hungry escalator. Dean decided to take a chance, and laced his fingers into a step for Cas to get a leg up. To his surprise, Castiel grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him up against the book shelf! Dean gasped in surprise, but Cas held a hand to his mouth, signaling for quiet. Dean nodded, staring as Cas licked his lips in concentration, gathering the cloak about himself. He nodded slightly, and Dean – back against the bookshelf – once again held out his hands. This time Cas stepped into them and grabbed the bookshelf, finally settling his feet on Dean’s shoulders. Dean couldn’t really see what was happening up there, but he felt Cas shifting, and then going up on tip-toe.

“How’s it goin’?” Dean whispered.

“I think-“ Cas began.

The back door opened. Both boys froze. Dean craned his neck to espy none other than Prof. MacLeod, wearing one of her splashy dresses, had just come wafting into the classroom. As Dean held his breath, she crossed the bookshelf, breezing right past Dean and Cas, and proceeded over to the tea kettle that was situated on a hotplate over in the corner of the room. She set it to boil and stood there, humming to herself while Dean stood stock still, his shoulders aching, and Cas began to sway. He was obviously starting to have trouble holding his balance.

After an agonizing amount of time, the kettle whistled (which made Cas jump and shuffle again) and Prof. MacLeod patiently began to pour herself a cup of tea. She blew on it, and then took a satisfied sip.

She turned. “Would you boys care for a cup?” she inquired, now staring straight at Dean. Dean sighed, and then noticed with a start that his sneakers had become visible out of the bottom of the cloak. 

“Cas. Come on down,” he said. Castiel paused his wriggling, and then hopped to the floor, pulling the cloak from Dean. Cas was still wrapped up to his neck, so he looked like a floating head.

“Ooo, is that a wee invisibility cloak?” Prof. MacLeod asked, stepping forward to run a practiced hand along one invisible edge. “Good craftsmanship.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Oh! Ye ken ye have a ragged edge?” 

“Hungry escalator,” Dean told her. Given that the jig was up, he figured he might as well be honest.

“Aye, those escalators can be a wee bit mad.” She drew back and cast a practiced eye up and down Dean and Castiel, and then leaned in to pinch Cas’s cheek. “Cute as buttons, ye are!” she giggled.

“Dean Winchester,” said Dean.

“Oh, I have your brother in my class. Such lovely hair he has.”

“Castiel Malakhim,” said Cas.

Now Prof. MacLeod’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve taught your brother as well. A naughty boy he was! Now, are ye practicin’ gymnastics in my classroom then?”

“We, uh, just wanted to borrow a book, ma’am,” Dean told her while Cas just looked guilty.

“And why didn’t ye ask then!” the professor laughed. She drew back and swept a hand along the shelf. “I’d like to encourage book learning.”

“It’s, uh, _The Book of the Ding-Dong-Damned,_ ” Dean admitted. 

Quick as a wink, Rowena had a graceful red wand out, flicking it at the book, which, upon her cry of “ _Ex Libros_ ,” sailed down right into Dean’s hands. 

“Wow! Thank you!” said a very stunned Dean. “Uh, did you want anything-”

Prof. MacLeod was already fluttering over to the teapot. “Why don't ye join me for a wee cuppa?”

“I have to study-” Cas grunted, but he abruptly shut up when Dean elbowed him. “Uh, I would be pleased to?”

“Now, drink deeply,” she urged, handing over two intricately patterned teacups. Dean held the thick book awkwardly under his arm while he grasped the cup and saucer, ever mindful not to chip anything.

“Thank you, Prof. MacLeod,” Cas whispered as he stared dubiously at the fragrant brew.

“And why haven't I seen ye in my class, Mr. Malakhim?” she asked, fluttering her eyes. “I might take offense at being snubbed!”

“Oh, I apologize, ma'am. Um, for the offense?”

“Now, me bairn, I'm just teasing,” Prof. MacLeod reassured him, cupping his jaw in her slim hand, much to Castiel's obvious distress. He gluped his tea, his eyes opening wide as he struggled to swallow.

“More tea?”

“Uh, no, ma'am,” Cas croaked. 

Prof. MacLeod eagerly snatched away the teacup, and then squinted into it, rolling it around in the light. “D'ye ken how t' read the message in the tea leaves.” She flashed a smile. “Well, no, ye haven't taken my class!”

“Sorry.”

But Prof. MacLeod gave a low whistle. “Ah! And I had wondered about your adventure with the Sortin' Hat.” 

Cas turned pale, and then flushed. He glanced over to Dean, sweating in his panic. 

“Are you well, Mr. Malakhim?” she inquired.

“I- I need to go!” Cas suddenly threw the invisibility cloak around his shoulders and bolted from the room with great alacrity. Or at least his head departed, as that was all that was still visible.

“Cas-” said Dean. But his friend did not halt.

“As if th' very devil were after him,” Prof. MacLeod muttered. “But I haven't seen his brother about.” She smiled and breezily turned her attentions to Dean. “More tea for you, dear?”

“Uh. Yeah. I mean, no. Thanks,” Dean muttered. He blinked as Prof. MacLeod now grabbed his cup from his hands and squinted inside.

“Oh, Fairrrgus, what are you up to now?” she sighed, rolling her eyes and carelessly tossing the cup into the sink.

Dean clutched the book to his chest. “Uh. I gotta go now, I guess?” He winced at his own lameness.

“Do say hello to me wee boy when you see him,” she told Dean, waving him off. She began to hum.

Dean emerged into the dark, silent corridor. “Cas?” he whispered, but his friend was nowhere to be seen.

The door to Prof. MacLeod's classroom abruptly slammed shut behind him, and Dean jumped in surprise. He tried the door, but it was locked. “Cas?” he called again. “Castiel?” He began walking along the corridor. This was an older wing of the building, and he didn't get around here too much. He was heading in the opposite direction of the way they'd come up, hoping to avoid the ridiculous escalator (he thought it might be holding a grudge since they'd escaped from it once already today). 

Down the hall he could see a stone hearth. They had fireplaces here and there to keep the place warm in winter. Nobody was attending the fires now, obviously, because it was stone cold as well as dark. But as Dean was hurrying along, he suddenly saw a flash of light, and something moving in the fireplace. Could it be Cas?

Clutching the book to his chest, he raced down the hallway, skidding to a stop opposite the fireplace.

A figure stepped out, coughing and covered in soot.

But to Dean's disappointment, it was definitely not Cas.

“Who travels this way any more,” Crowley coughed, as he paused to hack up his lungs. “Uncivilized.”

Dean took a step back as Crowley dusted himself off, sending soot dust flying everywhere. 

Dean remembered the book. “Crowley. We got the book!” 

Crowley was occupying himself with another coughing fit. “Yes, yes, why d'you think I transported myself over to you? Stupid, idiotic way to travel. But the escalator nearly got my trousers!” He held up a leg and, indeed, his pantleg was badly torn. 

“We had trouble too,” Dean confessed. Crowley ceased his hacking for a moment and grabbed for the book. But Dean, thinking twice, snatched it back. “Wait! How can I be sure you're gonna hold up your end of the bargain?”

Crowley blinked and pulled out a handkerchief, which also turned out to be dusted with ashes. He sighed and put it back in a pocket. “It's already done.”

“What?”

“Already done.”

Dean frowned. “Wait, how did you know I'd get the book for you?”

“You're the heroic sort, tend to keep your word and all.”

“But-” 

Crowley was still digging in his pockets. He uncovered a dusty wand, and suddenly waved it at Dean. “ _Misappropriata_!” he declared, flicking his wand, stirring up more grey dust and yanking the book from Dean's grasp. 

“Hey!”

But Crowley had already leapt back into the fireplace, and, with a sneeze and a sprinkling of floo dust, was away, leaving Dean all alone in the darkness.

 

Dean considered the French fry on the end of his fork. He sighed. 

For the hundredth time that night, he glanced over to where Cas was sitting at the Nordstrom House table. Castiel glanced up from his bowl of soup, catching Dean's eye. He parted his lips, as if to say something, but then frowned and went back to his dinner.

“You gonna eat that?”

Dean stuck his fork over towards his brother without looking towards him. “Hey, Dean, I was just kidding,” said Sam.

Dean had eventually made it back to the Bloomingdale dorms that night, thanks to a fire escape. But he hadn't talked to Cas since they'd been in Prof. MacLeod's classroom. And he still didn't know what Crowley had done with the book he'd borrowed. Nor did he know whether or not Crowley had held up his end of the bargain.

His life, in sum, sucked big time.

“Dean, what's going on?” asked Sam, waving away the soggy French fry. Dean stared morosely at it, and then sat down his fork.

Sam glanced at Jess, who was busy arguing with Charlie about the best spell to make an origami swan fly. Then he leaned over towards his brother, keeping his voice low. “Dude, I know you got it bad over Cas, but I've never seen you stop eating before!” 

Dean bridled at the mere suggestion that he had anything at all over Cas. He was going to set Sammy straight on all that, except he happened to glance over at the Nordstroms for the hundred and first time, just as Cas ventured a little wave in his direction, and suddenly all the words left his head, and he was left to make a tiny, totally dumb wave of his own. 

“Oh my god, are you waving at Cas?” bellowed Jo, who immediately had to duck a swooping origami swan. 

“Of course the damn fool is wavin' at Cas!” Benny put in, who suddenly turned and added his own mocking wave, which Jo took upon herself to imitate. Soon enough, half the Bloomingdale table was hailing Cas, with calls of, “Hey Sweetie Pie,” and Dean was really going to sink under the table and maybe just melt from the pure, unadulterated horror of it all. 

Cas, for his part, donned a sweet, shy smile and waved back. And Dean died a little inside.

“Are you kids ready?” called Prof. Shurley, who shambled in at the head of a retinue of the instructors, several of them looking somewhat the worse for wear at this hour of the day (somewhat after cocktail hour), clad in his house bathrobe. They all came to a halt before the raised dais at the head of the dining room, where Prof. Shurley paused to remove a small metal flask from an inside pocket. He added a jigger or two of a clear liquid to his coffee cup, and then took a very long slurp. 

“Ah. Now we're gonna select the entries for our Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament. Is everybody ready to rock?”

Gabriel (who prided himself on always being ready) jumped to of the NeimanMarcus table and screamed, “Yeah, I'm ready to rock!” There was some grumbling from the classmates whose dinners he had knocked over, but also a smattering of cheers. A bunch of the rotten NeimanMarcus students were surrounding Lucifer, who wore his typical smug expression. It was obvious who their entry would be.

“Yeah, we're ready!” yelled Jody, as she and Donna tossed some popcorn at the stupid Neimans. This led to a minor food fight, which several of the professors needed to step in and halt.

Finally, when things had settled down a bit, Prof. Shurley stood in the midst of smashed tomatoes and beached cream pies and signaled Prof. Singer to remove his hat.

“Aw, this ain't gonna end up like last time?” grumbled Prof. Singer, who didn't seem terribly eager about the whole thing. “I just broke in this one.”

“C'mon, Bobby, we need a trucker hat,” whispered Prof. Shurley, wriggling his fingers with impatience. Prof. Singer reluctantly handed over his snap-back.

“So, as I was saying,” continued Prof. Shurley, after another big guzzle of “coffee” from his _WORLD'S GREATEST WIZARD_ mug, “this year is our semi-annual Tri-Wizard Trucking Tournament, and we have our entries right here. Prof. MacLeod?”

Prof. MacLeod wafted out, holding a teapot. “We have all the wee entries, kept safe an' warm.” She popped the lid off the teapot and held it upside-down above Prof. Singer's hat.

After a bit of rattling, one single slip of paper fluttered down from the pot into the hat.

Prof. Singer and Shurley, who were both leaning over the hat, both frowned.

“Only one damn entry this year?” fussed Prof. Singer.

“Not well attended, is it love?” sighed Prof. MacLeod.

“Well, then I guess we won't be needin' to mess with the hat of fire,” said Prof. Singer, reaching for the hat.

“Of course we need to do the hat of fire!” insisted Prof. Shurley, snatching the hat away from Prof. Singer yet again. “It's tradition!”

“One damned entry?” grumbled Prof. Singer. 

“Now, Bobby, it's tradition,” said Prof. Henricksen, patting his shoulder.

“Damn fool gonna ruin another hat.”

Dean turned to Sam, who (like everyone else) was now staring at the spectacle. “Wait, why is there only one entry?” Dean whispered.

“Probably because everybody knows there’s been an 85% fatality rate in previous races!” Kevin piped up, even though Dean totally hadn’t asked him.

The number clicked through his mind. “Wait! 85%?” That sounded … well, it didn't sound good.

“96% if you count morbidity and mortality,” Kevin added.

Prof. Shurley, undeterred by the lack of participation, was whipping up some magic. He removed his wand from his robe pocket and traced it around the rim of the upturned hat. “Incinerata!” he called, giving his wand a final flourish. 

The hat in Prof. Shurley's flared up with a column of fire that was high enough to leave a black mark on the ceiling. 

The flames receded, and a single slip of paper fluttered out, the name written on it flaring up in gold for a single moment.

“Lucifer!” read Prof. Shurley, who was squinting into his half glasses. 

A cheer went up from the NeimanMarcus table, and the magical food fight erupted once again after someone tossed a flying pie at his head. Lucifer – who was magically untouched by any of the hurtling tomatoes or flying bean casseroles – paraded around the room like a conquering hero. As he was, inevitably, if he was the only entry.

Dean, for his part, sat cursing under his breath. That rat, Crowley had obviously betrayed him, and after all the folderol about stealing his mom's book! Though it had been fun breaking in with Castiel. He peered across the chaos in the dining hall to see if Cas was still over there.

“Burnt to a crisp, just like a thought,” grumbled Prof. Singer, clutching his badly charred hat. He gave it a shake, and suddenly, along with a fog of grey ash, something fluttered out, flaring and then falling, twirling round and round. Prof. Singer grabbed the note, his brow creased in surprise. “Professor Shurley!” he bellowed.

Prof. Shurley licked some banana crème from his face and whirled around, his bathrobe swirling up around him to reveal he was wearing a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers underneath. Prof. Shurley read the note, mouthing the name, and then yelled, “Hey, everybody, shut up!”

Prof. Singer waved his wand. There was a crack, like the sound of a rifle report.

The room fell silent.

“Thank you, Prof. Singer. We have another name, Dean Winchester!”

Dean shot up to his feet. Across the room, Castiel stood as well, but unfortunately he was immediately slapped by at least three separate flying crème pies. 

“Dean!” shouted Prof. Singer, who was now hurrying towards him, backed by half the faculty. _“Did you enter your name into the Trucker Hat of Fire?”_ he demanded.

Dean breathed, and then answered, truthfully, “No.”

“Oh,” said Prof. Singer. He scratched his grey beard, and then pulled out a wrapped candy. “OK, cool. Want a mint?” 

“Uh. No thanks,” said Dean.

“All rightie,” said Prof. Singer, who was already unwrapping it. He popped it into his mouth. “Well, looks like you're entered! Hey, this year we'll have a real contest. I'll have to set my TiVo!” And, giving Dean a hearty slap on the shoulder, he strode out of the room, followed by most of the teachers. 

Dean gulped, and glanced over towards the NeimanMarcus table. The food fight had died down around that area of the dining room. Lucifer was staring back, a smug grin on his face. Crowley stood beside him, smiling like the cat that had eaten the canary. Lucifer slapped Crowley on the back, nearly knocking him over.

A realization dawned on Dean.

“Dean.”

Dean turned around. A rather sticky Castiel stood before him, dripping lemon crème and looking especially earnest. 

“Hey, Cas.”

“About the contest, Dean.” Concern traced his pie-covered face.

“Cas-”

Suddenly, Dean felt himself yanked by what seemed like sixteen pairs of arms. “We're out of here!” Jo, who had inserted herself between Dean and Cas, told Castiel. “Go back to your own table, NeimanMarcus.”

“I'm not-” Cas started.

“Let's go,” urged Benny, who had at least a pair of hands on Dean. “No talkin' to the enemy.”

“I'm a Nordstrom,” Cas reasoned.

“Yeah, just like your brother!” called Charlie.

An entire mob of Bloomingdale students had now surrounded Dean and was shoving him towards the door. “Wait. Cas!” he called.

But Cas bit his lip, and just stood, watching sadly.

Dean was swept out into the hallway and halfway to the Bloomingdale dorms before he finally struggled away. He stood in the middle of a group of his friends, just at the foot of the escalator that led up to their common room. 

The Bloomingdale escalator grumbled, obviously hungry.

“What are you guys doing?” Dean demanded.

“Dean, we hadda get you outta there,” Benny told him. 

“It's Bloomingdale against NeimanMarcus!” Jo declared.

“But you were just trying to get me to go talk to Cas,” Dean told her.

“Hmpf! He's the enemy now.”

“He's a Nordstrom.”

“He was almost a NeimanMarcus,” Jo protested. “Everybody knows! The hatstall, and his brothers are all NeimanMarcuss!”

“Michael was a Nordstrom and Raphael is a JCPenney!”

“How is it you know so damn much about Cas?” Benny asked.

Dean huffed and turned to his brother. “Sam! Can you talk sense into these people?”

Sam sighed and cast his gaze downwards. For once, Jess wasn't around.

“Sammy?”

Sam looked up to meet Dean's gaze. “Dean, I know you like Cas-”

“As a friend!”

“I know you like Cas, but maybe, just for now....” He trailed off.

Dean was speechless. His cheeks flushed, he caught his breath, and stared around at everyone once again. People looked down, or took a step back.

He whirled around and stepped on the Bloomingdale escalator, which began to smack it's step lips.

“Let me up, you son of a bitch!” he yelled at the escalator.

The crotchety machine suddenly snapped into normal stairs, and Dean simmered as he was carried up.

Slowly, after a silent pause, his housemates followed him.

 

It was late when Sammy finally came to bed. He slipped into the bottom bunk noiselessly.

But Dean hadn't been able to sleep.

“Sam.”

Below him, Dean could hear his brother stir. “Dean. Hey, I'm sorry about before-”

“You know why they wanted me in the contest?”

There was a long silence. Dean stared at the ceiling. 

“They wanted you in the contest?” Sam was standing beside the bunk, scratching his head. “Wait, what?”

“It's a long story. Yeah. They wanted me in the contest.”

“OK.” 

Dean closed his eyes, but he knew Sam was still standing beside him. The image of Lucifer patting Crowley on the back wouldn't leave his thoughts. 

“They wanted me to lose, Sammy.”

“What?”

Dean eyed his brother. Sam was lacing a hand through his dumb, floppy hair.

“Look, I'm sure that's not true.”

Dean shook his head.

“OK. All right. We'll talk later, all right?”

Dean closed his eyes. Finally, he heard a faint shifting, as Sam got back into his bunk.

“Good night, Dean,” said Sam.

Dean stared at the ceiling.

 

The day of the first contest had dawned cold and clear and bright. 

Most of the yawning students were gathered around. There were two trucks mounted with trailers standing in wait.

There were also two huge wooden crates. These evidently held the cargo, which was supposed to be some kind of magical beasts. Prof. Fitzgerald had listened to both of them with some kind of magical stethoscope-looking device and gave thumbs up. One of the crates sat quietly, but the other occasionally vibrated and even appeared to jump a little bit. Occasionally, a piercing shriek emitted. Dean imagined that that was the one with the dragon he and Cas and Charlie had met, only he didn't remember the shrieking noise. It had seemed quiet and friendly – what had gotten it all stirred up like that? Did it not like mornings?

Yawning, Dean hopefully scanned the gathered crowd, but didn't see Cas anywhere. He hadn't seen Cas anywhere but class in the past week, between the time his name had come out of Prof. Singer's hat and the start of this stupid race. 

Prof. Shurley was speaking. He had actually gotten dressed this morning, though he had been adding a lot of liquid from his flask to his coffee cup. There would be three races, winner was best out of two, blah blah blah..... What Sammy had discovered (which didn't warm Dean's heart) was that no one had actually made it all the way through three races. Usually, the winner was the only one who had survived two of them!

Now they were going to randomly assign cargo to the drivers. Dean hoped he wouldn't get saddled with whatever was in the rattling, howling box. 

“Dean?”

“Yeah.” Dean glanced at his brother, who was nervously holding hands with Jess. Both of them looked expectant. Dean had pretty much retreated into himself for the past few days. He realized that he missed talking to his friends. He turned to them and tried to make himself smile. It didn’t work so well, but he tried to lighten his tone of voice. “Yeah?”

Sam took a breath and squared his shoulders, and then glanced over at Jess, who nodded in encouragement. “I read up on the rules. I guess they’re gonna decide your cargo now. And you get a co-driver?”

“A co-driver?” Well, that was at least encouraging. “You wanna volunteer?”

Sam’s face broke into a small smile. “Of course. Yeah. I’m an idiot too.”

Dean found himself smiling for the first time in what seemed like forever. “Yeah. You are. An idiot.”

“I’ll volunteer too!” piped up Benny. It seemed like several of Dean’s classmates were hanging around, being nosey.

“Thanks, dude,” said Dean.

“What about me?” said Jo. “I can drive a truck! I can do it better than you.”

“Not better than me,” said Benny. “I got a truck.”

“I can drive a semi!”

Dean beamed at his stupid, wonderful bickering friends, and then punched his idiot brother’s shoulder. And then Benny and Jo started to argue with Sammy about who was the best driver. Jess slipped her hand into Dean’s.

“I’m glad,” she whispered to him. “He’s been miserable for the past week.”

“We’re all right,” said Dean, though he knew they weren’t. “You are so out of Sammy’s league!”

Jessica rolled her eyes.

Charlie came running up, her eyes filled with tears. “They need to release that poor dragon!” she wailed. “Did you hear him crying? This is mistreatment! I’m going to call the ASPCMC!”

“I think we’re gonna be assigned soon,” said Sam, pointing to where Prof. Shurley was still speaking. Absolutely no one was listening to him, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Dean sighed. “How are they gonna assign it?” It was probably some kind of magical hoo-hah.

“There will be a coin flip to assign the cargo,” Prof. Shurley said, as if on cue. Every head turned.

“A coin flip!” said Jo.

“They’re not ‘cargo,’ they’re innocent magical creatures!” Charlie stormed.

Sam and Benny stopped bickering to give Dean a shove, so he reluctantly walked towards the head of the crowd, where Lucifer was already standing, looking so smug you wanted to punch him right in his stupid face. Crowley was standing in the crowd, also looking smug, and Dean remembered he also needed to punch him, just for being an ass.

Prof. Singer, who was wearing his badly charred trucker hat, handed over a shiny silver coin to Prof. Shurley. Prof. Shurley held up the coin.

“Hands where we can see ‘em, Luci!” growled Prof. Shurley. Lucifer, who had one hand stuck deep in his robe pocket, suddenly pulled it out and tried to act innocent, which was rather difficult for him.

“Call,” said Prof. Shurley as he flipped the coin up high. 

Lucifer acted puzzled for a moment, so Dean immediately stepped in and yelled, “Heads!” Had Luci never seen a coin flip before? Well, he was from an old wizarding family, so maybe so.

“Heads it is!” said Prof. Shurley, peeking under the hand slapped to his robe. As the entire Bloomingdale house cheered and all of the NeimanMarcus students sulked, Dean pointed towards the crate that was quite visibly _not_ jostling and screeching.

“Well, why don't ya go open 'er up,” said Prof. Singer, handing an old-fashioned skeleton key over to Dean. Dean and his friends ran over to the box. He eagerly opened the padlock, and together, he and Sammy and Benny and Donna and Jody grabbed the hinged wooden door and swung it open, emitting a shrill squeak from the hinges.

There was a terrible shrieking, and then suddenly a huge head lunged forward, only stopped by the iron bars set across the door. Pointed teeth, big as your forearm, clamped down on the bars and the entire box shook.

Dean, now on his butt where he'd fallen, stared in horror at the huge monster. It thrashed and flashed its emerald eyes.

“Haha, idiot!” taunted one of the Neimans. They had all gathered around their own crate, which still thumped and rattled.

“They're keeping that poor dragon captive!” wailed Charlie. “It needs to be liberated.” Several hands grabbed her as she tried to run up and liberate the thrashing hell beast.

“Is this even the same dragon?” asked Dean. 

Meanwhile, the NeimanMarcus students had unlocked their crate full of mystery magical creature, and Lucifer undid the hasp.

Then, as the box took a big rattle, he took a very big step back, as did all the others. 

“Aw, c'mon, how bad could it be?” asked Gabriel, who suddenly strode up and grabbed the door. “C'mon, are we Neimans or what?”

Several kids grabbed the door and pulled it open and...

Nothing.

Was the crate empty?

Lucifer looked at Gabriel. The Bloomies were quietly watching now. Even the dragon had calmed down to cast an emerald eye in that direction.

“Is it invisible?” asked Gabriel.

As if in answer, a tiny peep emitted from the crate. Out of the shadow hopped a very tiny white bunny.

“Aw, it's kinda cute,” said Gabe. “Hey, pal!”

Lucifer swiveled around to smirk at the Bloomingdales, who'd gotten punk'd.

A shriek pierced the air. The bunny opened huge jaws and threw itself at its mesh cage door with sufficient force to jerk the cage forward a full six inches.

Gabriel was on his butt. “Ahhhh! It tried to kill me! Did you see that?”

“How are its jaws bigger than the whole stupid rabbit?” wondered Meg. She had just shown up, along with Cas, who glanced over at Dean. Dean, of course, glanced back, and the glance somehow turned into a longing stare, which is how things tended to work with those two idiots.

“I like rabbits,” Cas finally told Meg, after she elbowed him in the ribs and brought him back to consciousness.

“What even is that thing?” Dean whispered to Sam, who might actually know. But he didn't want to tip off the NeimanMarcus kids.

Sam had dug a book out of his ever-present backpack and was flipping through it. “I have no idea, Dean. I'm looking for something about getting a dragon to chill out!”

Dean glanced back at their own magical creature. It had calmed down somewhat since they'd opened the crate, but was still switching it's tail. Dean had thought it was a dog-dragon, but somehow it now seemed more cat-like?

“One last thing, students!” shouted Prof. Shurley, as the crowd that had once gathered around him around him had long since dispersed to try and deal with the rather contentious magical creatures. “We need to choose your co-drivers!”

“You're choosin' me, right Dean?” Benny asked.

“He's choosing me!” Jo retorted, and there started a little discussion that was loud enough Dean couldn't hear a single word of what Prof. Shurley was mumbling.

“Wait!” Dean hushed them. “I think it gets chosen for you!”

“It gets chosen for you,” said Sam, who was still leafing through his crumbling old book for a spell.

“What's he doing?” asked Dean, as Prof. Singer handed over two coins to Prof. Shurley. Prof Shurley was gesturing for Prof. Singer to take off his hat again, and there was a delay while Prof. Singer rolled his eyes and generally pitched a fit. 

Finally, Prof. Henricksen grabbed Prof. Singer and Prof. Tran snatched his cap. Dean had gotten closer to hear what was going on, but then stepped back (along with everybody else) when Prof. Shurley once again aimed his wand at the poor, charred trucker hat. There was a cascade of colorful fire, and, unfortunately, the had was reduced to nothing but ashes and a charred brim.

“Balls,” breathed Prof. Singer.

The NeimanMarcus students, almost as one, began to search through their pockets. Everybody came up empty-handed, except one. 

“Got it!” yelled Gabriel, happily tossing a golden coin in the air. “I'm your co-driver!” he told Lucifer, who nodded smugly (as that was his way of nodding).

“What?” protested Crowley, who had reversed every single pocket on his person. “What happened?” It was rather obvious he had expected to be chosen.

Dean ran back to his friends. “Look in your pockets!” he ordered.

“Why, you need a light?” asked Benny.

“A coin!”

“You doing laundry now?” asked Jo.

“A gold coin!” Dean told them. “My co-driver will have one of the gold coins in his pocket.”

“Or _her_ pocket!” Charlie reminded him.

“His or her pocket!” All of the kids dug into their robe pockets, jacket pockets, trouser pockets and shirt pockets. 

“It's no fair, girls have fewer pockets,” Jo grumbled.

“Try looking in your purses and bags!” Jess suggested. 

This was met with much enthusiasm, but not a lot of results, as even socks, caps, and shoes were searched.

“Are you sure this is how they did it?” Sam finally asked Dean.

“It appeared in Gabe's pocket!” Dean told him. 

“Well, that's Gabe!”

“Dean.”

“Not now, Cas,” Dean reluctantly told him. 

“Dean,” Cas repeated. Dean turned. 

Castiel was holding out a gold coin.

“Where did you find that?” Dean asked.

“In his robe pocket. Duh!” Meg told him.

Dean looked between the coin and Cas's face, and then at the coin, and then at Cas's lips, where he kind of got distracted for a bit.

“I- I am your co-driver, Dean!” Cas said, squaring his skinny shoulders in an adorable attempt to appear confident. 

“Wait, what?”

Dean was now being mobbed again, this time by a bunch of half-clothed Bloomingdales (several people had stripped almost down to underpants in an attempt to find the elusive golden coin Cas was now flashing in his hand).

“He stole it! He must have pickpocketed us,” Jo huffed.

“He did not steal it,” Meg huffed back. “I saw him pull it out! And look at him! Do you guys really think Castiel is capable of pickpocketing?”

“That's true,” said Jess, who laced her fingers up with Sam's hand. “I know Cas, you guys. He's really honest.”

“Can you even drive, Short Stack?” Benny demanded.

“Um, no,” Cas admitted.

There was a general wave of wailing and gnashing teeth on the part of the Bloomingdales. Dean didn't know what to do! Yeah, it was weird, but maybe it was meant to be?

Meg elbowed Cas and held up a thermos. He grabbed it and nodded. “But, I know how to get the Buzz to calm down!” he said.

“Uh, who?” said Benny.

“Wait,” said Dean, hushing the rest of the grumbling Bloomingdales. “You mean the dragon?” He pointed over to the crate, where the dragon wore an expectant look.

“Yes,” Cas explained. “I named him Buzz. We're friends.”

“Like, Buzz Lightyear?” asked Jo.

“Buzz Aldrin! He's my favorite astronaut.”

Dean had to smile. This made about as much sense as anything Cas ever said.

“He's in a cross mood because he hasn't had his coffee,” Cas continued, taking the thermos and walking towards the crate. “We, uh, borrowed some of Prof. Shurley's coffee.”

“I borrowed it,” Meg admitted. Dean had to nod, that totally seemed like something Meg would do. Across the way, Prof. Shurley was shaking his cup upside down and frowning.

Dean ran over to Cas and crouched down next to him. The dragon, looking a lot less cat-like and a lot more dog-like, sniffed curiously at the thermos.

“Here you go, Buzz Aldrin,” said Cas. “This will brighten your mood!” The dragon stuck out a huge pink tongue out between the bars, kind of the way you'd roll out a red carpet, and Cas carefully poured out coffee onto the end of it, where it was slightly bowled. Buzz Aldrin the dragon withdrew his tongue and swallowed with a loud gulp. In a wink, its eyes brightened and its tail began to wag. Cas gave it a couple more shots of coffee this way as everyone watched in astonishment, and then said, “I think we can remove Buzz Aldrin from his cage now. He is probably sorry that he was in a bad mood.” Cas leaned to whisper to Dean, so as not to be overheard. “He gets a little cranky in the mornings!”

Dean smiled brightly, partly because the dragon had calmed down and now looked like the Corgidragon again, and partly because Cas's face was now just inches from his own. “Uh, yeah, let's get the cage open for Cas!”

There were a whole bunch of skeptical looks, but they figured out how to open up the cage and Cas (who had some cookies in his pocket) let Buzz Aldrin the Corgidragon over to the truck and then up the ramp and into the trailer. Dean had to admit to himself that Buzz was kind of cute when he waddled (though not as cute as Cas).

Dean was surrounded by Benny and Jo. “Dean,” Jo hissed. “He's gonna spy on us!”

“I doubt it.”

“He can't even drive!” Benny added. “What kinda help is he gonna be?”

“He helped with Buzz Aldrin!” Dean protested. Just then, a scream emitted from over where the NeimanMarcus kids were still trying to get the recalcitrant bunny rabbit out of the cage.

Crowley was running away, bleeding and screaming. “He bloody bit me! He's a demon spawn!” he shrieked. 

“Silly rabbit,” chuckled Dean. But it was clear more NeimanMarcuss were checking spell books, which meant they would have the rabbit monster loaded up soon. He and Cas needed to press their advantage.

“Cas, you ready?” 

Sam and Cas had just finished shutting up the back trailer.

“I feel like I should ride along with Buzz Aldrin in the back, Dean,” said Cas, who was looking terribly concerned for his friend.

“We'll talk about that later! Right now you're up in the cab with me. I gotta double-check our route with Prof. Henricksen!”

The Potions professor was standing on the starting line, holding a flask of something or other. It was bubbling and fizzling, so it probably wasn't whiskey. But then again, you never knew.

“Where's the finish line?” Dean asked. “Is there a map?”

Prof. Henricksen didn't reply immediately, but instead knelt down and poured the bubbling liquid in the flask out the flask onto the blacktop. It sizzled a bit as it hit the pavement, and then quickly sank in and disappeared. “The finish line is just up the road. For now.” 

Dean peered down the road. He could actually see the banners from here! It was only a mile or so down. This was going to be cake! Well, given that he could figure out how to shift. 

Henricksen had pulled out his wand. “ _Escherate_!” he called.

Quite suddenly, the roadway creaked and groaned and, before Dean's eyes, started to twist on itself, winding up into knots and loops and whirls like a crazy carnival ride. The screen of evergreen trees at the side of the road wrapped itself around, until it was impossible to see where it were headed!

“No maps,” said Henricksen. “It's a bit of a maze.”

Dean stood, open-mouthed, staring at the twisted roadway. How the hell was he going to even get himself down that, much less a big truck carrying a dragon? Though much of the roadway was obscured now, he could see at least one giant hill climb he wasn't sure there existed a gear low enough to ascend.

Cursing his luck, he ran back to his truck, where Cas was now in the passenger seat, all belted in.

“He used a maze spell!” Sam cried.

“Yeah, is there any way to counter it?” Dean asked.

“Not that I know of,” his brother told him.

“It won't be a problem, Dean,” said Cas.

Dean exchanged a skeptical look with his brother. “You know a spell, Cas?”

“I think so.”

Well, there was nothing to do but get on the road. Sam handed him a small booklet. “This is the manual. Have Cas read through it.”

Dean lobbed it up to Cas.

“Good luck,” whispered Sam.

Dean nodded, squared his shoulders, and then ran around to the driver's side.

“Any idea how to get this thing started?” he asked Cas as he scanned the dashboard. Thankfully, it looked a lot like one of his dad's old rigs.

“Do you know how to perform the function to put the vehicle 'in gear?'” Cas inquired. 

Dean had driven a truck before, of course. Since he had been a curious kid, his dad had let him sit behind the wheel and and give it a try. But that had been years ago, and since then, Chuckworts had filled up Dean's brain with spells and magic. So it took a few stalls (and some creative cursing from Dean) but soon, they had gotten the truck moving and crossed the starting line. Dean glanced over at the NeimanMarcus team in the rear view mirror – it looked like they had rigged up some kind of magical cage for the rabbit, and were finally getting it loaded. He cursed again, and Cas glanced over. 

“They've got a lot lighter load than we do,” Dean explained.

“Oh. I think that won't be a problem,” said Cas.

“You don't think anything will be a problem!”

Cas smiled mysteriously. “Trust me, Dean.”

But for a while, Dean had to focus on keeping his rig on the road. First the roadway went up, and then it went into a blind turn. He tried to take it as quickly as possible, since he didn't want Lucifer and Gabriel to catch up, but didn't want to run off the road. At some points, it was arched up several feet above the embankment, and it would have been difficult to get it back on track without a tow truck or some powerful magic spell.

Some turns were banked the opposite way of how they should have been. And then there were random peaks and valleys. It really was like a roller coaster ride! The tarmac was rough, but Castiel, to his credit, did not complain, but calmly pointed out the direction ahead.

They came to a fork in the road. “What do we do?” Dean demanded as he coasted to a stop. “We don't have a map. Should I take a guess?”

“Please pull over and give me a moment, Dean,” said Cas. “And, uh, when I return, please don't look?”

“What?” Irritated, Dean set the rig in park, but then looked back when he heard the soft flapping of cloth. To his surprise, there was nothing in his passenger seat but Cas's robes – Cas seemed to have disappeared.

“Cas! What is this? Did you bring the invisibility cloak?”

“Who!”

Dean did a double take. There was now a small black owl perched on his dashboard. A small black owl with unmistakeable blue eyes.

“Cas! Is that you, dude?” It was a little weird. Usually when people did the animagus spell, their clothing went with them. But maybe this was a different spell?

The Castiel owl hopped on Dean's shoulder and pecked at Dean's window, so Dean lowered it. And then Cas flew off.

Dean sat and waited impatiently, drumming his fingers on the dash. He heard a roaring behind him. He stuck his head out the window, but then quickly ducked back inside just as Lucifer's truck passed him, going full blast. They must have cooked up some spell to make it go faster! It took the left fork without hesitation and soon disappeared around the bend.

Growing more and more impatient by the second, Dean hopped out of the truck and peered at the sky. Where was Cas? But then he saw a small dark shadow, which swiftly flew down and disappeared into the cab.

Impatient, Dean threw the driver's side door open. “Cas!”

Cas literally shrieked. He was sitting there, absolutely buck naked, desperately trying to pull on his pants.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” said Dean, dumbly. But then he continued to stare for a long moment.

“Dean!” said Cas.

Dean broke out of his trance and hastily slammed the door. “Sorry!” he called back. 

Cas was at the window in a moment. “I'm sorry, Dean. I've never figured out what to do with my clothing during my conversion.”

“Hey, that's OK,” said Dean. “I mean – you're an animagus! That's pretty advanced, right?”

“I suppose so.”

“Uh. Anyway, which way do we go?”

“The answer is, any path. It seems all branches of this maze go to the finish line.”

“Wait, really?”

Cas opened the door and pointed. He had his pants back on, but his shirt was buttoned all wrong. “But I would go to the right, as the other path goes through a 360 degree loop!”

“Got it! Taking the right,” said Dean, hopping back into the driver's seat and starting up again. “We gotta get moving, Lucifer has already passed us. And by the way, you got your shirt on wrong.”

“Oh!” said Cas, looking down. “And, yes, I saw my brothers.”

Dean turned. “You saw them?”

Cas smiled as he tugged on his shirt. “Yes. They suffered, uh, an unfortunate incident trying to pass the 360 degree loop.”

Dean grinned. He could just imagine!

Also, Cas had a really fine ass. Legendary. 

“Now be aware that the next curve goes sharply to the right!” They drove for a while in silence, while Cas called out things he'd noticed in the roadway. They finally happened upon a stretch of roadway that was relatively straight. 

Dean noticed that Cas had wrapped his robes around him like a blanket, and was huddled inside. “Oh, hey, you want me to close the window?” He had never shut it – he like driving with an elbow out the window.

“I'm fine.”

“You sure?”

Cas got a funny expression. At length he said, “I get embarrassed when I transform into an owl. I wish I could figure out how to get back into my clothes.”

“You could fly in?”

“I've tried that! I ended up with my head in my pants leg!”

Dean couldn't help it, he cracked up, and soon, Cas was laughing as well. Then he grew quiet. “I am self-conscious because I have chubby thighs,” he sighed.

“What?”

Cas was full on blushing now. “Well, you saw. Gabriel always-”

“Cas! OK, I got a good look. You're perfect!” Because, well, Dean had gotten a pretty good look. And what he saw was … pretty good.

“Really?” Cas's eyes were actually gleaming.

“Yeah, really! And I don't care what Gabe says. He's a NeimanMarcus! And well, no offense.”

“I don't like NeimanMarcus,” Cas fumed. “Especially my brothers!”

“But aren't you-?” Dean trailed off. This seemed to intrusive.

“Aren't I what, Dean?”

Dean drove in silence for a moment. “Well, you know. You went into hatstall. We all saw.”

“Yes?”

Dean did not reply.

“Oh!” Cas suddenly dropped the robes he was clinging too. “You think the Sorting Hat wanted to assign me to the NeimanMarcus House?”

“Didn't it?”

“Dean!” Dean stared as the road suddenly rose up ahead of them. They had just turned a sharp corner and were fast approaching a really high slope. 

“I'm not sure we can make it. Hang on!” The gears howled in protest as he shifted down and the heavy rig hit the beginning of the slope at high speed. Dean gritted his teeth. He had a feeling for these things, and he could already sense the engine was overworking itself. Like the story about The Little Engine That Could, the truck chugged on as the slope got higher and yet still higher. 

“Dean, I-”

“Just hang on. We're gonna make it!” But despite all Dean's will, the engine groaned in protest. He panicked as it stalled about two thirds of the way up, and then the whole thing started rolling backwards.

“Hang on! Hang on!” Dean warned as they lurched backwards, now gaining speed the wrong way. He struggled to start the overheated engine, and pulled on the brake. 

Somehow, he kept control as Cas suddenly whipped out his wand and yelled “Decelerata!” The truck skidded to a halt just before the curve, back down at the bottom of the hill, Dean sweating and still gripping the brake with all his might.

“I must go attend to Buzz Aldrin!” said Cas, who slipped his wand out of his pocket and leapt out of the cab. Dean remained in his seat, trying to catch his breath. He glanced back and saw something flash in the rear view mirror, as if someone had just cast a spell. Then something roared. Dean stuck his head out the window, terrified that Buzz Aldrin was in a testy mood. But Dean had to duck back into the cab as Lucifer’s rig swept by him, seemingly powered by rocket engines. He caught just a glance of Luci and Gabe sitting in the cab, both apparently frozen in terror. 

The truck roared up the hill, easily making the crest, and then to Dean’s amazement did not stop, but simply kept ascending into the sky. It was a long moment before it finally began to descend.

Dean jumped at the sound of metal on metal, but it was only Cas, returning. A small figure bounded in after him and tossed itself into Dean’s lap.

“Is this… a dog?” Dean asked as the creature wagged a rather barbed tail and panted with a forked tongue extended.

“That is Buzz Aldrin!” said Cas, puffed with pride.

Dean immediately recognized the emerald eyes, and noticed that the “dog” sported a pair of stubby wings. “Oh, you used a shrinking spell!”

“It was more of a _folding_ spell,” Cas corrected gently. He held out a cookie, and the small dragon eagerly snapped it up when he tossed it over. It chewed, and then burped, emitting a bit of ash.

“We had two choices to ascend the hill,” Cas explained. “One was to increase our power output, as my brothers apparently chose. The other was to decrease our weight!”

“Great, Cas,” Dean sighed. “But Luci and Gabe are way ahead of-“ Suddenly, there was a great crash somewhere up ahead. “BAM! BOOM! CRASH!!” Dean cringed, and Buzz Aldrin stood up on his stubby hind legs to peek out of the window.

“I wouldn’t be too certain of that, Dean,” said Cas, a shy smile tracing his features. 

Dean was forced to smile back. “OK.” After a moment or two of beaming at one another, an actual thought wormed its way into his head. “Hey, you think that _folding_ spell would work on the trailer?” 

The boys and their small companion hopped out and ran back to try Cas’s magic. They managed to get the trailer down to a size Buzz Aldrin could use as a chew toy. (Fortunately, Dean managed to grab it away from him by tempting him with more cookies.)

Dean backed the cab enough to get a good running start, and then with Cas beside him and Buzz Aldrin eagerly wagging his barbed tail (he whacked Dean but good in the thigh, which probably raised a welt), Dean ground into gear and brought the rig up-up-up over the crazy rise. Of course, once they crested the hill, they had an excellent view of Lucifer's truck, which was lying in a rather regrettable state along the side of the road. Both Luci and Gabe were out, apparently trying to effect magical repairs, but this wasn't going so well, as the ferocious rabbit had escaped whatever bonds (magical or otherwise) had kept it confined, and was chasing after the boys with a menacing hoppity-hop hop.

“Is that the finish line up ahead?” Dean asked once they'd finished sticking their tongues out at Cas's brothers while they whizzed by. (Buzz Aldrin also hissed and flapped his stumpy wings.) The killer bunny, for her part, actually ceased her pursuit of the Malakhim brothers for a moment to twitch her adorable pink nose at them. But then she was off again, springing after Lucifer to chomp him in the butt.

“I believe that is the finish line, Dean,” said Cas. 

Indeed, it was! A crowd of students awaited, as did several of the professors. Prof. Shurley had managed to refill his coffee cup, but Prof. Singer and Prof. Henricksen managed to wrestle him to his feet to wave the checkered flag moments after Dean and Cas came rumbling over the line. 

Dean pulled the truck to a halt and leapt from the cab, and immediately found himself surrounded by his cheering Bloomie friends. “Hey, guys, wait!” he said, but anything he said was drowned out by their yelps of triumph. As they pulled him up onto their shoulders and began to carry him away, he twisted himself around to look back.

Cas was standing by the truck, holding Buzz Aldrin in his arms. The miniaturized dragon flapped its little wings, and Cas held up a shy hand to wave goodbye.

“Cas,” said Dean. And his heart broke, just a little.

 

“He's my co-driver! I need to talk to him!”

Dean glared around the Bloomingdales dormitory room. His housemates were arrayed around him, glaring back. It was a stand-off. It had pretty much been a stand-off for the past week. 

“He's one o' those Neimans!” Benny stormed. “Can't trust 'em – they're all fishy!”

“For the last time, he's a Nordy!” said Dean.

“He's a NeimanMarcus, just like his rotten brothers,” said Jo. 

“His brother was a Nordy, and his other brother is JCPenney.”

“I don't trust the Penneys folk neither,” said Benny, crossing his arms and looking quite distrustful indeed.

Dean turned to his brother, who had just come into the common area. “Sam, help me out here!”

But Sam evidently decided to be a rotten double-crosser as well. “Uh, actually, I was gonna go do some research. Important research. Right now!” He held up some textbooks. What a nerd, Dean thought. No help at all!

“Whatever,” Dean grumbled.

“And, I figured you're probably gonna come along,” Sam continued. He had now wrapped one of his long arms around Dean's shoulders and was tugging him towards the library. “Yup, gotta get some research done before the next race.”

Well, talk about fishy. But Dean really wasn't getting anywhere arguing with his stupid housemates, so even though he was in a rotten mood, he let his brother lead him off to do some stupid, boring research. At least he'd get a chance to blow off steam, he figured. He walked along for a time beside Sam, grumbling all the way. But as soon as they were out of sight of the others, Sam yanked him aside, into a darkened classroom. 

“Sammy, what is going on?” Dean demanded.

“Shh!” hissed Sam, who was trying and failing to act all innocent.

“Can I come out now?” huffed a familiar voice. Dean jumped a foot to see Gabriel’s disembodied head suddenly floating in the middle of the hallway. 

Dean turned on his brother. “Dammit, Sammy! The Bloomies are already after my head for talking to my own co-driver. They’ll murder me for talking to Luci’s co-driver.”

“I’m not a co-driver any more, bunko,” sighed Gabe. “And I’m not just a head,” he added, stepping out of his invisibility cloak.

“What do you mean you’re not Luci’s co-driver.”

“Been booted for that sleaze Crowley. By my own brother!”

“Can a sleaze call another sleaze a sleaze?” Dean demanded. “Because that’s just … sleazy!”

“Shhhh, quiet down you two!” Sam whispered. He was peeking around the corner, looking quite agitated and pretty much fed up with everything. “Dean! Gabe has some information for us.”

“What?” Dean countered. “You mean that you’re a sleazy sleaze who’s sleazy?”

“Your vocabulary is astounding,” Gabe grumbled. “Anyways, my dumb bro kicked me out of the cab.”

“How could he even do that?” Dean demanded. “I thought your co-drivers got assigned?”

Gabriel actually looked defeated for a moment. “Yeah, by the gold coin. But I lost it somehow, and Crowley found it.”

“A spell?” asked Sam.

“Yeah, I think he got a spell from that old book he stole from his mom!”

Dean suddenly started feeling a little guilty. He had stolen that book! 

“So anyway,” Gabe continued, “I wanted to help out my new favorite brother - who is definitely not Raphael – with a tip about the next race.”

“What kinda tip?” Dean had to ask. 

Gabe stopped and took a breath. “OK. Now, they've also got some kinda tongue-tied spell on me, so I can’t say it or write it or even perform an interpretive dance of it!”

Dean huffed a sigh. “Yeah, that’s just great.”

“But wait, look.” Gabe pulled something out of his robe. It was an ice cube tray, which he upended and cracked with a flourish.

“Ice cubes?” asked Sam. 

“We’re mixin’ margaritas,” sighed Dean. “Yeah, great.”

Gabe glared, and then produced a snowball, which he lobbed at Dean’s head.

“Dammit!” Dean wiped the ice off his head and took a threatening step towards Gabe.

“Hey, I’m helpin’ you out!” Gabriel protested as Sam threw himself between the other two. 

“A snowball?” asked Sam. “What does that mean? Are we going some place snowy?”

“No! It’s-“ Gabe had begun shaking his head, but quite suddenly his face flushed red and his hands went to his throat.

“Tongue tied,” Sam sighed. He nodded at Dean, who enthusiastically (perhaps a little two enthusiastically) grabbed Gabriel and yanked his mouth open. Sam pointed his wand at the knotted pink ball that was Gabe’s tongue and ordered, “Disentanglia!” Gabriel gasped, his tongue suddenly reeling in like a measuring tape when you press the button. 

Dean stood, holding the panting boy for a moment. “You OK?” he finally asked.

Gabe stuck out his tongue, which seemed to have snapped back to more or less the appropriate length. “Guess I would’ve been popular with the ladies,” he whispered.

Dean chuckled, and released him.

“Gabe, can you give us another hint?” asked Sam. “So, we’re not going to a cold place? But maybe we should work on cold spells?”

With a grin, Gabe flourished his wand, and suddenly the entire stretch of corridor was coated in a slick layer of ice. 

Dean slid back. “I guess it’s either that, or he wants us to go see Frozen a bunch of times.” That got Gabe gritting his teeth, but he didn’t reply, as the fear another bout of the tongue tied spell outweighed the wish to once more aim a jibe at Dean Winchester.

“Gotta skate,” Gabe muttered, and then the invisibility cloak was once again flourished, and he disappeared. A second later, there was a loud thump just down the corridor, and a yelp of “Ow!” And then, evidently, he managed to depart without further incident.

“So, cold spells,” mused Sam. “Why cold spells?”

Dean shrugged, and slid around in a circle on the ice. “I dunno. We’re going some place hot?”

“But where is it hot around here this time of year?” said Sam as he watched Dean improvise a double Salchow. 

“Yeah,” said Dean, thinking about their gloomy surroundings. “Nothing but trees and mountains.”

“Mountains?”

Dean halted, and the brothers stared at one another.

“Mount St. Murgatroyd!” they chorused. They stood for a moment, eyes locked.

Finally, Dean said, “Son of a bitch, we better get some cold spells!” And they both took off running.

 

Dean sat in the dining area, moodily staring at a chili fry, and gazing around at his friends. Besides the litter of half-eaten chicken nuggets and dripping vanilla milkshakes were stacks and stacks of books, as Sam and Jess and Charlie and Kevin and Jody and Donna and even Benny and Jo pored through literally every source they could find for chilling spells. It wasn’t going well. Despite Gabriel’s facility with producing ice cubes out of nowhere, the magic was either hard to come by, or too difficult for them to master in such a short time.

Dean too was supposed to be researching too, but instead he was occupied by pining for Cas, from whom he had remained separated since their joint win of the first contest. He let out a long sigh as Castiel appeared in the dining area, walking Buzz Aldrin (still in his Corgi form) on a leash. 

“Dean!” Dean winced as Charlie gave him a swift elbow in the ribs. 

“I’m listening,” he grumbled. “I’m listening.”

“Snow slurry spell!” said Charlie, waving a book at him. One thing his friends didn’t seem to have picked up on was that if you wanted Dean Winchester’s full attention, waving a book wasn’t likely to get it.

“Boy’s too busy making googly eyes,” snorted Benny. “Dean, I’m poking around in a damn book for ya!”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” sighed Jo, who collapsed into a stack of musty books. “Why does magic have to be so musty!”

Dean caught Cas’s eye for a fraction of a second. Cas’s eyes sparkled in that cute way, but then he disappeared around a corner, leaving nothing but a memory and a puff of smoke from Buzz Aldrin.

Dean tossed a soggy French fry into the plate and stood. 

“Wait, what are you doin’?” Benny asked.

“Don’t get weird, I’m just gonna get some coffee or something,” Dean sighed, holding up the plate.

Benny made an “I’m watching you” sign as Dean shambled off to dump the plate in a plastic bin.

“Hey, loverboy!”

Dean glanced over his shoulder and rolled his eyes at Meg, who had somehow snuck up in back of him. “What do you want? Pretty busy right here.”

“I’ve been watching you, Winchester. You’ve spent the last hour looking for Cas, and then the last three minutes staring at him.”

“Don’t you have anything else to do?”

Meg stood firm, arms crossed. She was in a redheaded form he hadn't seen before, but it was definitely Meg. “Why are you avoiding him? I mean, not that I care, but it’s making him gloomy as well.”

“Meg, I’m driving for the Bloomies! And he’s … well he’s kind of a Neiman.”

“What? Because his brothers?”

“Because brothers, yeah. And because record-breaking hatstall!”

Meg squinted at him like he was out of his damn mind. Which, well, maybe he was. “Wait! He didn’t tell you about the hatstall?”

Now it was Dean who was taken aback. He dimly remembered that Cas had brought it up, but then there had been other things happening and whatnot. “Uh, yes. No. Kind of?”

Meg spread her arms wide and gazed up to the heavens. “You are such and idiot you don’t even know how big an idiot you are! I mean, that’s how big of an idiot you are.”

“Maybe,” Dean had to agree. 

“You need to talk to Cas. Like now!”

“What are you talking about? Get away from him!” ordered Jo, who had just stormed up along with Benny.

“You’re secretly in league with the Neimans, everybody knows that!” Benny told her.

“Oh, quit it you two,” Meg told them. And they began to argue with such vehemence that none of them noticed when Dean slipped away and went running down the corridor in the same direction that Cas had disappeared to.

It occurred to him a bit too late that he really had no idea where Cas had gone too, and he was so distracted at this thought that it didn’t occur to him that he was no longer running down the corridor but rather sliding at a rather rapid pace. He tried to arrest his forward motion, but it was quickly taken care of by the handy wall into which he had slammed.

“Dean!” Dean shook his head and found that Buzz Aldrin (still, fortunately, in his small form) had leapt into his lap, and was giving him slightly charred kisses.

“Dean, are you all right?” inquired Cas, who glided up to him. Dean noticed that Castiel was wearing ice skates.

“Cas are you … practicing cold spells too?” Dean asked as Buzz Aldrin hopped off his lap to greet Cas.

“I’m sorry?”

“Cold spells,” said Dean, who leapt up a bit too swiftly for his present circumstances, and had to be steadied by Cas. Dean found himself held in Cas’s arms, and was too distracted by this circumstance to catch Cas’s question the first time or two (or three). “Sorry, what did you say, again?”

“I am not suffering from influenza, Dean.”

It took a while for this thought to burrow into Dean’s brain. “No, no, not a cold, I mean cold magic. You know, for the volcano race?”

“Volcano race?” asked Cas. “I’m sorry, Dean, I don’t understand. I was trying to replicate a scene from my favorite anime. It involves pairs skating. But unfortunately, Buzz Aldrin, despite his other talents, is probably not a suitable partner.”

Buzz Aldrin, apparently pleased at the sound of his own name, leapt gleefully into Cas's arms and flapped his chubby wings. No, he didn't look like a great skating partner.

“You're trying to skate … with your dog?” Dean had to ask.

Buzz Aldrin's stumpy ears stuck up, taking offense. “Buzz Aldrin is a Corgidragon, Dean. Not a dog.”

“Oh, uh, sorry Buzz Aldrin,” Dean told him. 

Cas appeared downcast. “I used to skate with Meg. Back when we could use the lake. But it's in a restricted area now, and Meg says she would prefer to spend her time working on hexes.”

Dean's mind spun. Cas had been spending all that time with Meg … ice skating? 

Finally he said, “Look, Cas, I tell you what. You use your ice spell and we win the next race, I'll volunteer to skate with you! I can skate. I mean, when I have skates on. I'm not always crashing into walls. Unless you're around.” Dean found to his despair that he was now babbling as well as blushing madly.

Cas hugged Buzz Aldrin to his chest with enough ferocity that the small creature wiggled its small paws in an attempt to dig out. “Would you do that for me Dean?” Cas gushed, his eyes sparkling. Perhaps it was the anime influence? Dean had seen anime, but it never, to his recollection, involved ice skating. Tentacles yes, but ice skating, no.

Buzz Aldrin had escaped Cas's grasp and was pattering around the icy floor, sniffing inquisitively at Dean. “Yeah, sure thing Cas.” Dean told him. How bad could it be?

To Dean's surprise, Cas reached out and grabbed his hands and began to pull him along the icy floor while Buzz Aldrin happily skipped along behind them. Dean smiled, and dimly recalled that he'd come along to ask Cas something important. But as the corridor whirled around, he was not sure quite what it was that had been so important.

“Quidditch practice!” Dean said suddenly.

“Quidditch practice,” whispered Cas, who quite suddenly seemed to realize this was not a term of endearment. “Oh, I don’t wish to make you late, Dean!” he said.

Cas had dropped Dean’s hands and the whole whirling around stopped and Dean’s mood fizzled. 

“Come along, Buzz Aldrin!” ordered Cas, who began to skate down the corridor, pausing only to wave goodbye and call, “I’ll see you for the volcano race, Dean! I will continue to practice my ice spell!”

Dean nodded and stared after Cas he wasn’t certain how long. At length, he was shaken out of his trance by the sound of his name.

He turned around to see Sam coming down the corridor, along with Benny and Jo and the rest. “Dean, where have you been?”

“Did you figure out a cold spell?” Dean asked, as he noticed Charlie and Kevin were holding books.

“No,” Sam admitted. The whole team looked pretty downcast.

“But we think maybe some fresh air will help!” noted Benny.

“It’s all right,” Dean told them. “We got it taken care of.”

“Taken care of?” asked Sam. “How.” Just then, he took a step forward and hit a patch of ice, and when Jo stepped forward to catch him, she slipped as well, and pretty soon the whole team was engaged in this awesome game of Crack the Whip, trying to keep their footing in the icy corridor.

“Who did this?” asked Benny. 

Dean grinned. “A friend.” And then as his friends watched in amazement, he turned and glided gracefully down the slick hallway.

 

An uncomfortable silence loomed over Dean's car, even as he and Sam, and Jess in the back seat, shared the last of their thermos of coffee. The sky hung, slate grey and foreboding. 

Dean took another turn and glanced at his brother. The day had started cheerily enough, with excited chatter and a round of hot coffee and some breakfast burritos Jo's mom had packed up for them (Dean took extra hot sauce on his). But as they neared the start of the race, Mount St. Murgatroyd, the conversation had faded, and trickled off to silence once they hit the outer radius of the blast zone from the mountain's last eruption. The road passed the last shaggy scrim of living foliage and entered into an eerie landscape of felled trees, laid out like pale bones spread before a predator's cave. 

Then they were past even the last traces of life, to a flat expanse choked in grey ash. Occasionally they would pass something recognizable, like a ruined car buried up to the fender. But mostly they were in a dreary land, capped at the horizon with the looming, ruined face of the mountain, sitting simmering out curlicues of toxic orange smoke.

“We'll go, we'll chill,” said Dean, mostly to himself as they neared the parking area.

“You'll be fine, yeah,” Sam replied, though he sounded as if he didn't quite believe it. 

Dean squinted up ahead. “Wait, whose car is that?” he asked.

Sam and Jess followed his finger. “That's Meg’s car,” Jess told them.

“What?” Dean hadn't really meant it to come out quite that harshly, nor at that high an octave, but he could see the passenger door open and a familiar figure emerge, the stubby little shape of Buzz Aldrin bouncing after him. “Why did Cas ride with her?”

“He can't drive, remember, Dean,” Sam sighed. 

“And the Bloomies wouldn’t let you take him with us,” Jess reminded him. She was especially peeved because Jo and Benny had been trying to talk Sam out of even bringing her along, and Sam and Benny (who didn’t especially get along at the best of times) had nearly come to blows over it, meaning Sam was mad and Jess was mad and Benny was mad and Jo was mad and, like so many times recently, Dean was in the middle of it all. He had wished it was all over and he was pair skating with Cas, whatever the heck that was.

Fuming at his current life situation, Dean pulled his car into a nearby spot. The start wasn't as crowded as it had been for the first race, as this location was pretty remote, in the middle of a Forbidden National Park. He exited the car without speaking to Sam or Jess and stalked around for a few moments.

“Dean?”

“What?” Dean barked at the rotten, no-good person who had dared to walk up behind him and utter his name.

Of course, it turned out to be Cas.

Cas was walking Buzz Aldrin and now they both looked sad.

“No, not you Cas! I didn’t mean you! You’re fine. You’re cool. I mean, we’ll be cool, right? We’re working on that ice spell, right?” 

Buzz Aldrin continued to glare, but Cas pulled out his wand and quickly produced a small patch of ice, upon which Buzz Aldrin immediately leapt in order to chase his switching tail around and around.

“Cool, Cas! I mean, literally, right?” Cas’s expression had changed from an uncertain frown to a small smile, so Dean smiled back, but sadly this cascade of happiness was broken by the abrupt arrival of Dean’s brother.

“Dean, you need to see this!” Sam panted. Jess was right behind him, also looking out of sorts. “Your route today.”

“We’re cool, Sammy,” Dean assured him. “Look, Cas is our team icemaker! We are literally cool!” Dean was most pleased with his pun, so it annoyed him when Sam didn’t seem impressed.

“Dean!” called Benny. OK, Benny and Jo and Charlie were here now as well, standing with his brother as if they were all getting along. Maybe this was something he needed to see.

“Something wrong?” Dean asked. 

“Dean, the road,” Sam told him.

“It’s gonna be hot, right?” Dean asked. There was a roadway that actually wrapped around the inside of the volcano. As you may have guessed, it was constructed back in the day when everyone thought the mountain was a dormant volcano. As opposed to an active volcano, which it very much was. 

Nobody was talking, so after a moment Dean as well as Cas and Buzz Aldrin joined with the group and followed them up along a trail towards the start of the course: the ring road inside the mountain. Of course, now that the one side of the volcano’s cone had been pretty much demolished by the last eruption, it was more of a C-road or maybe a U-road.

Dean came up over the crest, but then backed off with such rapidity that he stomped on Cas’s toes and had to be held upright by Cas and Sammy. 

There was indeed still a roadway that ran along the inside of the volcano. It was hot, and bathed in smoke.

It was also narrow. On one side was the sheer face of the volcano’s inner cone, and on the other side, a steep drop down – down – down into the darkness.

And here was the thing about Dean: he didn’t much care for heights. 

“Nope nope nope,” muttered Dean, blinking and feeling the suddenly butterfly-wing quick beating of his heart. “Nope. Nope nope,” he repeated. 

Cas appeared much more deeply perplexed than normal. “Are conditions not what you expected, Dean?”

“Dean’s got a … _thing_ about heights,” Sam whispered, even though Dean was inches away. On the other hand, it was not clear that Dean was processing information at the moment, as he was still stuck repeating “Nope” over and over and over.

“A … _thing_?” Cas inquired.

“Boy don’t like ‘em,” Benny supplied.

“He won't fly in an airplane,” said Sam. “We had to have our dad drive us out here to school.”

Cas peered at Dean, still confused. “But, he's on the Quidditch team.”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “I dunno. I guess he likes going fast?” This last was twisted up like a question, as it would be regarding the enigma of Dean Winchester.

“Then we will go fast around the volcano!” Cas vowed.

“Cas,” said Sam, “Look. I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but you don't know my brother. Logic kind of … bounces off.”

Jo had her wand out. “I have a calming spell!” she announced. “I got it from my mom!” She flourished her wand, but at that last moment, Charlie made a bit of an impulsive decision and leapt in front of Dean. 

“Oops,” said Jo, and Charlie staggered from the blast of the spell and slowly sank to her knees. Everybody abandoned Dean to his nopes to take care of Charlie instead.

“Dudes! Chill!” Charlie slurred as Benny caught her hand.

“Is she OK, Jess?” Sam fussed.

Jess pulled some kind of scope out of her bag and tried to use it while Charlie wobbled. “I totally can see your aura, dude!” Charlie told Benny and slung an arm around him.

Jess frowned. “Uh, I think she’s OK, just kind of … drunk. Or stoned? Jo, what kind of spell was this?”

“My mom uses it all the time!” Jo protested.

“Oh my god you guys! Look at the unicorns!” Charlie exclaimed, pointing off into the distance. “They’re dancing!”

“Dean,” pleaded Sam, who had gone back to his brother’s side. “You gotta snap out of this.”

Dean tried to catch his breath, but the world was still spinning. That drop! Why did the mountain road have to be so high up on the danged mountain?

“Look,” said Benny, who had Charlie by the scruff of her collar as she attempted to catch imaginary unicorns, “if Dean can't drive it, you need your co-driver to do it.”

“I'll step in for Cas!” Jo vowed.

“He can't just swap out his co-driver,” Sam told her.

“Why the heck not?” said Benny. “Luci just swapped in Crowley!”

“Crowley got Gabriel's coin somehow,” Sam told them.

Dean shook his head. “No! No, I'm staying with Cas!”

“You can't take Cas!” Jo yelled. “He can't drive, and he's a Neiman!”

“Why do you all keep insisting I'm a Neiman?” Cas asked quietly. Suddenly, everyone in the group turned to stare at him, as he was the only rational person around.

“The hatstall. Duh!” said Jo.

Cas bit his lip, but didn't reply.

“Haha, you chuckleheads all think Cas was supposed to be a Neiman?” laughed Gabriel, who of course had been lurking around in his cloak of invisibility.

“What are you doin' here?” demanded Benny, who swung a punch at Gabe's head but ended up swing dancing with Charlie instead, since she was still hanging on to him.

“Cas! Tell 'em,” said Gabe.

Castiel remained stubbornly silent. Buzz Aldrin sat at his feet, wagging his tail.

“Tell them or I will!” Gabe urged.

Even Charlie seemed to regain a bit of her senses. All eyes were towards Castiel. “Cas?” said Dean, reaching out to place a hand on his friend's shoulder.

Castiel drew a very long breath, staring at the ground. “The Sorting Hat wanted me to be a Bloomingdale!” he confessed.

Several people gasped. 

“But I told it over and over, I can’t. I'm not brave,” Cas continued. He looked up at Dean, teary-eyed. “I'm not brave,” he whispered. He wiped his eyes with a baggy sleeve, steeled himself, and then went on. “So I told the Hat to assign me to Nordstrom, as Michael had formerly attended the House, and thus we could economize on robe purchase! We argued for a long time, but I was not going to give up.”

Everyone was quiet for a bit longer, Gabe's still disembodied head nodding, Buzz Aldrin's tail swishing. “Cas,” Dean said quietly. “You're the bravest guy I know.”

Cas didn't say anything – his smile said everything.

“And I'll be proud to have you as my co-driver for this last race,” Dean continued, even though just the thought of that sheer drop made him queasy. 

“Are you kids gonna keep standin' around?” hollered Prof. Singer. “It's time for the start. Get your butts in gear.”

Well, there was no disobeying Prof. Singer, so everyone headed over to the start. Lucifer and Crowley were already there, Crowley looking especially smug as he held the fearsome bunny in a golden cage. Despite his fears, Dean stared at the rabbit – didn't it seem a lot more docile than it had been? Maybe they had used a spell like the one Jo was trying to cast on him!

“Dean,” said Cas, who had just come up beside him. “I'm sorry that I cannot drive, but I believe I have a solution that might be helpful.”

“Hey, anything would help,” Dean told him.

The mountain was in a rotten mood today evidently, as it was puffing up a lot of nasty, foul-smelling grey smoke and making it hard to see very far. Prof. Shurley, along with Prof. Henricksen and Prof. Singer were all lined up at the starting point, where Prof. Singer was having an argument with Prof. Henricksen. 

“But the rules say-” Prof. Henricksen started.

“We don't need to hitch up the trailers today, nobody's got a load!” Prof. Singer countered, waving his hand at Buzz Aldrin, who got up on his hind feet to check Prof. Singer's hand for snacks. 

Prof. Shurley wafted over, cradling his travel mug of “coffee.” “What's the hold-up?” he inquired.

“Bobby doesn't want us to hook up the trailers,” Prof. Henricksen protested.

“We'll get started quicker without 'em,” Prof. Singer told Prof. Shurley with a quick wink.

“Then just the cabs it is!” sang Prof. Shurley, waving his non-spill travel mug around with such ferocity that it spilled all over the place, including on Prof. Henricksen's robe.

“We will win regardless!” Crowley announced, placing the gilded cage containing their rabbit creature into Lucifer's cab.

“Somethin' seem off about that bunny?” grumbled Benny.

“Look at the gerbil!” blurted Charlie. “Luci's got a gerbil!” Crowley paled and slammed the door shut. 

“We gotta get you some hot coffee, girl,” Benny told Charlie.

“Hmmm,” said Gabriel's floating head. He cocked an eyebrow, and then disappeared.

Pretty soon, they were all lined up at the start. The roadway quickly narrowed down enough so that only one vehicle could safely pass at a time, so much depended on who got a quicker start. Unfortunately, it didn't look good for Dean and Cas (and also little Buzz Aldrin, who was sitting on Cas's lap with his paws or claws or whatever the heck you call his foot up on the dash, madly swishing his tail). Cas assured Dean he had a plan, but all Dean could see was the narrow road and that very sheer drop.

Prof. Shurley counted off ready – set – go, and Lucifer and Crowley sped off, leaving poor Dean and his friends in the dust. 

Dean glanced at Cas. “I'm sorry, dude. I don't know if I can do this.”

“Dean, I have an idea,” said Cas. He was already pulling off his robe and rolling down the window. “Just keep your eye on me. Follow me.”

“Cas! It's dangerous out there.” But Cas had already transformed into his owl animagus. He hopped out of his discarded clothing and darted out of the open window.

Dean gritted his teeth and watched as his friend flew ahead of the truck. He shifted into gear and told Buzz Aldrin, “OK, buddy, hang on!” And then they were off. 

To Dean's surprise, it worked. It helped that it was foggy enough from the volcano belching out smoke that the drop off wasn't always visible. But slowly but surely, Dean relaxed his death grip on the wheel and followed the sturdy little owl around the rim of Mount St. Murgatroyd. He worried that Lucifer had too great an advantage, but, as Cas kept going – occasionally circling around to make sure Dean was OK – he found he could keep going as well. 

The road twisted into a blind turn, and Dean lost sight of Cas around the bend. “Oh, here we go,” he muttered to Buzz Aldrin. He brought his truck around the curve, but then slammed on the brake and just nearly missed rear-ending Lucifer's truck.

Just beyond where Lucifer had stopped (just inches beyond, actually) the road had crumbled into the pit, leaving a gap of at least 10 yards. Beyond was a dizzying sheer drop. Both Lucifer and Crowley were standing on the road, wands out, obviously trying figure out how to magick their way across.

The Cas owl flew back and alit on the fender of the truck. As Dean sat at the driver's seat, Cas slipped inside and transformed back to himself. Dean, being a gentleman, averted his eyes, grabbed Cas's clothing and helped him get his pants back on.

“Thank you, Dean!”

“So, we're stuck here?”

“No!” 

Dean looked at Cas as Buzz Aldrin climbed into Cas's lap and switched his tail. 

“Dean,” said Cas, scratching behind the Corgidragon's stubby ears, “I believe my ice spell will work. You know, the one we worked on to keep us cold?”

“Wait, the ice spell?” asked Dean.

“Yes! Ever since we spoke, I have been practicing, and I have become quite adept at this conjuration. I believe I can use it to create a temporary bridge over the broken section of the road.”

Dean steeled himself and stared out ahead. “An ice bridge? It'll be slick,” he said.

“Yes,” said Cas. “But I believe that will present no problem for you, Dean. You are an excellent driver!”

Drinking in the praise with a smile, Dean turned back to Cas. “Also, Luci's truck is in our way.”

Cas gave wry smile. “That is true. We would have to let them cross first, and then follow them.”

“Meaning we'd have to trust 'em.”

Dean and Cas exchanged a look. It was fairly clear that neither of them trusted Lucifer and Crowley. Even Buzz Aldrin barked in agreement. Or did the Corgidragon equivalent of a bark, which a little more hissy and a lot more fiery.

“Well, let's get it done I guess,” Dean told Cas. Dean opened the door of the cab, but then made the mistake of looking down. 

Cas reached over Dean and grabbed the door, slamming it shut. “I'll handle this, Dean.” 

Still hyperventilating, Dean glanced at Buzz Aldrin, who was sitting on the passenger seat, taking in everything. “I don’t trust ‘em. Do you trust ‘em?” he inquired. Buzz Aldrin vocalized that they were a couple of sleazy scumbags, or at least that’s how Dean interpreted it. 

They watched through the windshield as Cas and Crowley conducted a debate, Lucifer smirking in the background. 

There was a rumbling sound, and the truck shook. Dean and Buzz Aldrin grabbed onto each other and ducked. Dean scrambled back up to peer out the windshield again. Evidently, Mount St. Murgatroyd had woken up in a very bad mood this morning, because it was now burping up balls of hot lava, which were striking all around where they were parked. 

“Cas, be careful!” Dean shouted.

Cas and Crowley yelled at one another for a short time, but then Lucifer grabbed Crowley and pushed both of them into his truck. Cas, in defiance of all that was logical, climbed up on the hood of Lucifer’s truck and flourished his wand. 

As the mountain rumbled and Dean’s teeth rattled, Cas recited his spell, and slowly but surely, an ice bridge was formed, joining the broken bit of road to the other side. Dean stuck his head out the window, but was grabbed back in by Buzz Aldrin tugging on his shirt, just as a hot splatter of lava burst onto the side of their truck. “Hurry Cas!” Dean urged. He heard Lucifer shift his truck into gear while Cas was still perched up on it.

“Wait!” But Lucifer’s truck began to move across the newly-formed ice bridge, Cas still clinging desperately to the hood.

Heedless to the danger, Dean shifted into gear and went after them. “Hang on Cas, I’m coming!” he yelled. Lucifer’s truck was sliding dangerously close to the edge as he passed. Dean could hear the crackles beneath him as he passed from the gravel onto the icy bridge. “Only one way to do this,” he told Buzz Aldrin, “and that’s keep ‘er steady.” He gripped the wheel, white-knuckled as the ice crunched and Lucifer drifted closer and closer to the edge. One of his wheels was now right on the drop off, and ice cascaded off in a fine mist as the outer wheel spun.

Cas twisted, trying to keep his grip on the hood with one hand and his wand with the other. Just as Lucifer’s front wheels once again hit gravel, the truck bounced, and Cas’s wand was jostled from his hand. He reached after it.

“No Cas!” Dean screamed, but it was too late. As he watched in horror, his friend pitched over this side of Lucifer’s fender and disappeared down into the darkness of the pit.

“Nooo!”

Ignoring Cas’s peril, Lucifer roared off. Dean blinked through tears of horror to bring his vehicle finally across the ice bridge, and finally back to the road, where he skidded to a halt and leapt out of the cab, heedless of the dropoff below.

He peered over the side, Buzz Aldrin panting beside him, down – down to the darkness below, where, as if by some miracle, he saw Cas had fallen onto an outcropping.

“Cas!” Dean hollered, but his friend did not respond. In fact, poor Cas did not move at all.

“We gotta get to him,” Dean told Buzz Aldrin, who flapped his stubby wings. He wondered if there was rope in the truck. 

The mountain roared and shook. Dean gripped Buzz Aldrin and ducked. He gaped back as the ice bridge he had just crossed crackled and then fell down into the pit. He could hear the ice sizzling before as it hit hot lava. “Dammit, we gotta get out of here. Cas!” Thankfully, Castiel was still on the outcropping down below, but he also was not moving.

Buzz Aldrin flapped his stubby wings. “Wait,” said Dean. “You’re a dragon!” Buzz Aldrin glared at him. “Sorry, dude, a Corgidragon. You can fly, right?” Buzz Aldrin sat and swished his tail. “OK, right, but we gotta figure out how to get you out of dog mode.” The creature gave Dean a skeptical look as he took out his wand. “Um, now, let’s see, what’s the spell?” He thought and thought, but the only things that came readily to mind was Quidditch stats from last season and a recipe for taco sauce. 

“ _Un-dogginate_!” yelled Dean, whipping his wand.

But nothing changed.

“Uh, _abracadabra!_ ”

Nothing.

Buzz Aldrin regarded him with the dragon-y equivalent of exasperation.

“Hey, I’m tryin’ here!” said Dean. The mountain shook again, and he bobbled his wand. He reached to grasp it, but instead, Buzz Aldrin caught it in its tail. To Dean’s amazement, the creature hissed, barked, and waved the wand, and eureka!

Dean screamed as he nearly fell over the side, as he was now sharing space on the narrow road with a huge dragon. Buzz Aldrin caught him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him up on its back.

“OK, pal, let’s go get Cas!” Dean shouted. And with that, Buzz Aldrin took wing. Dean realized that he really should be scared out of his mind, especially since he was flying into an erupting volcano, but all he could think about was Cas’s unconscious form. Buzz Aldrin hovered near the outcropping and Dean leapt off onto the narrow band of jutting rock and knelt down beside his friend. “Cas!”

To his surprise and delight, Cas emitted a moan and weakly attempted to roll over. “Dean?” he managed to whisper.

“Hey, it’s OK, buddy, we got you!” said Dean. “C’mon Buzz!” he yelled. Buzz may have misunderstood, because he craned his neck and gave Cas a great lick of his great dragon tongue. “Out of here I mean!” Dean ordered.

Buzz Aldrin positioned himself nearby, and Dean pulled Cas into his arms and positioned them both on dragonback. “Let’s get outta here!”

Buzz Aldrin didn’t waste any time.

Cas, who was seated in front of Dean, wrapped in his arms, attempted to turn around. “Dean! What about the race?”

“I don’t care,” Dean told him. “We’re gettin’ you out of here, and that’s final. That’s all that matters!”

The Corgidragon, however, seemed to disagree, as it paused to grab Dean’s truck up in its claws as it took off. They soared up, into the sky, just as the sun broke through the clouds, a beam of light shining through like a beacon of hope.

“We're gonna make it,” Dean said, perhaps more to himself than to Cas.

Cas wrapped his arms around Dean's, holding him tight. “I know we will,” he said, and Dean heaved a big sigh and ended up with his chin resting on Cas's shoulder, and he did feel very safe right then, as if the only place he should be right then was with Cas, riding a ridiculous dragon creature above an erupting volcano.

“Dean,” said Cas, so low Dean could barely hear, so he had a great excuse to hold Cas tighter.

“What is it?”

“I didn't want to be a wizard, Dean! I never wanted to be a wizard. But my family insisted.” He went silent.

“Really?” Dean prompted.

“That's why I'm not brave, Dean. I couldn't stand up to them.”

Dean thought about it for a bit. “What did you really want to do, Cas?”

Dean felt Cas draw in a very large breath. “I want to be a figures skater, Dean!”

“Well then, you know what? When we get back, we'll go skating!”

“Really?”

Dean hadn't thought far enough ahead. In truth, he was probably going to lose the race, and maybe even lose his scholarship. But he vowed that no matter what, he was going to be there for his friend. “Yes, really.”

Almost too soon, Buzz Aldrin guided them down, down, down to earth, where a small crowd of students was huddled together. Dean noticed sourly that Lucifer and Crowley had evidently made it as well, though they didn't look to be in a celebratory mood.

A whole row of professors was lined up in front of the mountain, gesturing with their wands and repeating spells and curses and charms. It was a game of back and forth – someone would launch a really good spell, and the mountain would quiet down for a bit, but then there would be a rumbling and someone would get blasted with hot lava. 

“Dean!” He heard Sam's shout above the crowd as they alit, and he was soon swarmed by hails and hugs from his classmates. People were hugging Cas as well, and this made him very happy – of course, until Meg got her turn. 

“What's going on?” Dean finally asked.

“You missed all the excitement, brother!” said Benny.

“All the excitement?” asked Dean. After all, he'd just flown out of an erupting volcano on dragonback!

“Yeah, I guess Crowley spilled tea all over his mom's book, so Prof. MacLeod was here and dragged him off by his ear.”

“But not until after she did that to their rabbit!” added Jo. Dean noticed Lucifer was sitting on the fender of his truck, glaring at the golden cage, which now held not their rabbit, but a hamster.

“Charlie was sayin' it was swapped out,” said Benny. “By the way, where did that girl go?”

“But what happened to the rabbit?” Meg asked, and even though no one much liked Meg, nobody really had an answer.

“Nooooooo!” screamed Gabriel, who had suddenly appeared as a floating head (as he tended to do). “Get it off me, get it off me, get it off me!” His disembodied head chased around until finally someone thought to pull off his cape of invisibility to reveal a rather vicious rabbit clinging with sharp teeth to his backside.

Buzz Aldrin, who was still in his grown up, Corgidragon size, snatched up the evil bunny by his little cotton tail. He tried to keep the creature at arm's length, but since his little Corgidragon arms were short, ended up grabbing the bun in its tail, where it snapped and chomped.

“Why is he so upset?” asked Dean.

“He bit my butt!” Gabriel whined. 

“The rabbit, not you!” Dean told him.

“Oh, I dunno,” said Gabe, rubbing his posterior. “But anyway, this proves that Luci cheated.” Lucifer, who was still leaning against the fender of his truck, glared at them.

“Does that mean Dean and Cas win?” asked Benny. “They got the truck here!” He pointed to Dean's truck, which was a bit crunched up after Buzz Aldrin dropped it, but nevertheless there.

“But they didn't _drive_ ,” said Jo.

“The rules don't say you have to drive!” said Sam, who was checking his laptop. “They just say you have to arrive first with your magical creature.”

“How do you even get WiFi at a volcano, dude?” Dean had to ask his brother, who grinned mysteriously.

There was a great rumble, and the ground shook.

“Kids!” yelled Prof. Singer. “None of our volcano spells is workin' today! We gotta evacuate, 'cause this thing's about to blow!”

As if the underline Prof. Singer's words, the mountain rumbled again, and then blasted forth a spray of hot lava. Fortunately, it missed the group of students, but unfortunately the boiling liquid fell smack into where everyone had parked their cars.

The only vehicle the lava spray missed was Lucifer's truck. So Lucifer, being a big jerk, jumped inside the only remaining vehicle and high-tailed it out of there. Because, as we may not have explained fully, he was a jerk.

“Dammit, Luci,” grumbled Dean.

“He's a jerk,” said Gabriel.

The mountain rumbled even louder, and this time a crack began opening in the ground. Everyone stepped back. Buzz Aldrin, who was still holding the irascible bunny in his tail, also moved out of the way, but in the process, dropped the rabbit creature.

“Watch out!” Gabriel screamed. But to everyone's surprise, the rabbit hopped not towards Gabriel's evidently tasty butt, but rather scampered off to where the Chuckworts professors had been standing, on a ridge directly below the angry mountain.

The rabbit reared up on its toes, leaned back, and emitted a shrill, ear-splitting roar. Dean fell to the ground, covering his ears while the rabbit roar echoed on the mountain.

Everything fell quiet.

Dean pushed himself up on his elbows. Everybody was on the ground, reeling.

Mount St. Murgatroyd emitted a single, steamy burp. And then, with a hiss and a muffled fwump, collapsed in on itself.

“That is one scary bunny!” said Dean as the rabbit, apparently finally satisfied, began to chase down some butterflies.

“Well, I guess we get to walkin' back,” said Prof. Singer. 

But just then the unmistakable sound of a truck roared from along the road. It was Lucifer's truck, but now Charlie was at the wheel.

The truck lurched to a halt, and everybody gathered around. “What happened, Charlie?” asked Dean.

“I'm not entirely sure,” said Charlie with a big yawn. “I felt sleepy after Jo's spell hit me, so I grabbed this blanket and curled up in the cab for a nap.” She held up Gabe's invisibility cloak.

Sam was looking in the truck. “But what happened to Lucifer?”

“Oh, he's with the unicorns!” said Charlie with a smile.

No one could figure this out, but then they decided they didn't really care. They got the trailer hitched up, and then everybody got ready to drive home.

“Are you sure you don't want to drive, Dean?” Sam asked as the group got ready to head back to school.

Dean looked over his shoulder at Cas, who was standing feeding Buzz Aldrin some cookies. “Driving is OK. I just think I have a taste for flying.”

Sam grinned and waved goodbye, and the truck roared off down the mountain.

Dean walked back towards Cas. “Hey,” he said.

“Hello, Dean,” said Cas. 

They smiled at one another.

Buzz Aldrin gave Dean a nudge with his big tail, and Dean slammed into Cas, who caught him in his arms, and they both blushed like crazy for a while, but finally, after a couple of impatient snorts from their Corgidragon friend, ended up in a sweet, shy kiss.

 

_And that, my friends, is the best place to end this._

_Except for one thing!_

_After all, Dean made a promise...._

 

“Welcome to the big halftime show at Chuckwort intramural Quidditch!” came Gabriel's voice, echoing with the PA spell. And a special welcome to all our paying guests! Thank you for buying tickets to this event, muggle friends! And we're sorry we're probably going to have to use an obliviating spell on you later, so try to make the most of your time here!”

An uncertain cheer went up from a corner of the stands where the ticketed guests were sitting.

“Thanks for the cash, it'll go a long way towards paying off Prof. Shurley's many gambling debts. Now, at halftime, the score stands, the Nordies are miles ahead of the NeimanMarcus House....” Gabriel paused here, for the boos to die down. “The Neimans are scoreless again, probably because my brother, Lucifer, has been banished for life plus 100 years for generally being a douche!”

Lucifer, down in the stands, sulked.

“Meanwhile,” said Gabriel, “I have a special announcement about the halftime show. Now, I know we announced that my brother, Raphael, was gonna read his slam poetry! Well, that's not gonna happen.”

Fuming, Raphael threw down a stack of his slam poetry and stormed off.

“Instead, we have a special performance from my other brother, Castiel, and my soon to be brother-in-law I'm sure, Dean Winchester.”

Dean turned towards where Gabe was making the announcements and scowled, but then Cas took his hand, and Dean instead broke into a smile.

Cas pointed his wand at the Quidditch field, which, like magic, began to freeze over. He had grown quite adept at the spell, so the grounds were soon covered by a thin sheet of sparkling blue ice.  
Cas began to skate off, but Dean grabbed his hand and pulled him back.

“Dean?” asked Cas, searching his eyes. “If you don’t want to skate with me….”

“No, Cas,” said Dean, catching both of his friend’s hands. “I just wanted to say, uh.” Dean steeled himself. “Theicelookslikeyoureyes,” he babbled.

Cas stood for a moment, and then broke into a glorious smile. He tightened his grip on Dean’s hands, and, together, they skated to the middle of the field, with Buzz Aldrin (in his small doggie form) padding at their heels. Buzz Aldrin was obviously very excited about the spectacle, although unfortunately, his fiery breath tended to melt the ice underfoot. 

Somewhere up in the stands, Gabriel cued up their music. Castiel had selected a slow, gentle romantic piece, so it was a bit of a surprise when a grinding dance beat resounded from the PA, and a full-throated singer urged, “ _Baby take off your dress...._ ”

Cas, who tended to do such things, froze, blushing a very deep scarlet.

“ _Yes, yes, yes...._ ”

Prof. Shurley, whose laptop Gabriel had appropriated for the occasion, suddenly got up and began rushing towards Gabriel. Who grabbed the laptop and fled.

“ _But you can leave your hat on...._ ”

Dean threw back his head and laughed. He dropped Cas's hands, did a little bump and grind to the sexy music, and then slipped off his class robes as if he were doing a stripping routine, to great cheers from the audience. He skated back to Cas and helped him do the same. After tossing the robe aside with a flourish, they skated off in time to the music to wild applause.

There were whoops from the stands. Sam grabbed Jess and jumped out into the field, where Jess conjured some ice skates and they began skating as well. Then Charlie and her new girlfriend Glenda joined hands and leapt in, and so did Jody and Donna, and the rest of the Nordie House, and the Bloomies, and the Neimans, and we're pretty sure the JCPenneys were out there too although probably no one noticed. The muggles also came out to dance and play in the snow, though some of them woke up to very strange hangovers the next day.

Pretty soon the entire field was full of happy students skating and dancing. 

They never did finish the Quidditch match.

But nobody much cared.


End file.
